


the dragon, the prince, and the songstress - act 2

by gappy



Series: the dragon, the prince, and the songstress [2]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, POV Multiple, References to Depression, Slow Burn, Worldbuilding, additional tags in a/n, tons of angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-01-30 12:30:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21428269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gappy/pseuds/gappy
Summary: second half. In which Corrin's first transformation is triggered the day Sumeragi is killed in Cheve, Azura is never kidnapped and taken to Hoshido, and Xander becomes disillusioned with his father; war breaks out and Garon's chess pieces begin to develop minds and wills of their own.
Relationships: Aqua | Azura/Zero | Niles, Marx | Xander/My Unit | Kamui | Corrin, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: the dragon, the prince, and the songstress [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1441417
Comments: 37
Kudos: 63





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> at last. FINALLY we made it to part 2. god. it's been a LONG time coming and i doubt even 1/6 of the people reading the first one are gonna pick up this because fates has had its time and is old news now, but believe it or not i am still determined to get through this monster of a fic one way or another.
> 
> what's going to happen in part 2? aside from the obvious "read to find out" - we're going to roughly follow conquest's path for a bit, then diverge into revelation, some pairings that were postponed big-time in part 1 are going to be way more in the spotlight... elise will become a much more prominent character, azura will be on the back-burner for the time being with more of the narrative focused on corrin and xander's side... and anankos will definitely be A Thing, im of the opinion that the connection between him and corrin should've been explored way more in fates (really - all dedicated to a DLC??) and the fact that corrin is the direct descendant of like An Actual Elder God. but ANYWAYS, all fun stuff, the story will move a lot quicker than part 1 which tbh slumped in some spots because i am Mediocre and pacing longfics is hard. but yeah - despite the long break and despite the definite drop in viewership this fic is gonna see, I'm gonna keep at it!! Thanks so much to everyone who's made it here - I literally can't express how grateful I am that you're still reading despite the inconsistent update schedules, the inconsistent chapter quality, the rambling, the fact that we're two games past Fates now - i'm extremely thankful!!!! this is for you!!!!

(act 1 - recap)

_The Dragon, a young princess from the kingdom of Hoshido, is kidnapped by King Garon and imprisoned beneath the Nohrian capital, Krakenburg. The King's intention is to break her, and grow her into an unstoppable monster to unleash on the battlefield._

_The Songstress, an outcast princess of Nohr scorned by its people, is enlisted to help the King's Adviser in his study of the Dragon. Her Amulet, given to her by her Mother, the former Queen of Valla, has the ability to quell the Dragon's blood and draw her from her stupor. In their childhood, the Dragon and the Songstress form a strong bond._

_The Prince, heir to Nohr and firstborn son of the King, stumbles through childhood and forces himself to fit the mold of a ruler. In his boyhood, he is haunted by an encounter he once had with the Dragon. As he grows, many more experiences begin to haunt him._

_Years into her captivity, the King has a change of plans and decides to excel his experiment with the Dragon, intending to strip her of her humanity completely and break her mind. He nearly succeeds, tearing the Songstress away from her to ensure the plan's success. The Dragon is handed off to the Prince; the King's intent is to bond the wielder of Siegfried with his new creation to form a deadly duo that he can unleash on Hoshido when the time comes to strike. The Prince finds difficulty in the task, however, as the Dragon only has interest in disemboweling him, and his lack of progress casts him into a depression that is not made any easier to bear by the isolation he and the Dragon are put in, far north of the Nohrian capital with no company but a set of guardsmen and two hostage maids from the Ice Tribe._

_The Songstress makes a bold move, stealing her Mother's amulet back from the King's Adviser long enough to sneak into the Fortress and quell the Dragon one last time. She receives injuries in this time that lead her to encounter the Thief, a retainer of the second prince._

_The Prince discovers the truth of the Dragon's identity and finds himself unable to process the idea that his Father's intentions could have been so dark. In his bewilderment, he agrees to temporarily shelter the Dragon and keep his sister's actions a secret from the King, something that only worsens his inner turmoil. In the meantime, the Dragon learns to walk on two feet again, with the aid of the Ice Tribe maids and Lilith, the Daughter of Anankos._

_The Dragon and the Prince, both thrown into impossible circumstances and stuck with the other in their lowest points mentally and emotionally, begin to form a tentative alliance. The Prince cannot stomach the idea of condoning his Father's plan, and fears what will happen to the Songstress should the King find out what she has done to the Dragon. He believes if he can right one wrong and return the Dragon to her homeland to attempt to live a normal life after the sins his nation and his family committed towards her, then he could rest easier and at least prevent one stain on Nohr's history from growing any bigger than it already is. The Dragon is faced with little choice but to go along with this plan, still struggling to adjust to a life outside of complete and utter captivity._

_The Songstress is drawn back into the King's web of plans, and finds herself being trained in combat. She sees her own death in the cards, knowing the King no longer has use for her. She decides to enjoy the time she has left and opens up to others. In this time, she is sent to the principality of Cheve, where a rebellion stirs._

_The Dragon and the Prince are sent on menial tasks of the King's while waiting for their true assignment, the War. Until the Queen of Hoshido's barrier can be broken, they cannot march east. The King does not disclose his plan for achieving this to the Prince. They quell a rebellion at the Ice Tribe, which leads to a massive loss of life; the Dragon is disgusted by what she is capable of, and feels betrayed by the Prince that he would push her to such a limit. Months later, a similar occurrence happens when the Dragon loses herself in a fortress of outlaws. Her struggle to achieve normalcy is stunted by these incidents, which she holds the Prince partially responsible for. The Prince does not object._

_Fate brings the Songstress out of Cheve and back to the capital, to what she believes are the jaws of death. Some time later, the Prince receives word that the Queen of Hoshido has been killed, and the King intends to move._

**(prologue) **a scene from the past, a scene from the present, a scene from the future

**HOSHIDO**

"Mister! Mister, hey! Would ya like some pork buns? I promise, they do not disappoint!"

"Oranges, oranges, oranges, freshest oranges this side of the river!"

"I have sake King Sumeragi himself once called his favorite. Come, come!"

Such cries and many more rang out across the bustling, tightly-packed streets of the marketplace on a hot, spring afternoon. Vendors took shelter beneath awnings as they bartered with customers, with the sun beating down on any unsheltered road or persons. Between the masses of people, buildings, street-carts, and baskets were trees and greenery, seemingly sprouting out of nothing. They stood in bright viridians and rosy pinks, some here and there boasting yellow or baby-blue flowers. Children climbed some trees, others sat atop buildings pointing indiscriminately at the crowds below or the clouds above and laughing with their friends. Husband and housewives, heirs and farmers, soldiers and soothsayers all walked the compact roads browsing the market's stock with amused smiles on their faces. The air smelled of fresh fruit and roasted meat and seasoned vegetables.

In an hour or so, as evening approached, the streets would be offered a brief respite from the heat. The marketplace sat in the shadow of Castle Shirasagi, and around this time of year the evening sun would sweep the structure's long shadow around the western end of town before setting. 

A figure made their way through the masses, a scarf wrapped round their head and shoulders, baggy, dark clothes hanging from their form, sandals designed to prioritize mobility over fashion on their feet, a pointed farmer's hat topping it off. Anyone with eyes could nail them as a ninja, though most preferred to travel in the shadows, or in a more discreet disguise. But this was the Shirasagi castle town, and there was naught to worry about but naughty children swiping your coin purse. Ever since the fall of Kohga, and other smaller divisions of ninja by the warmongering Kotaro, they'd seen more of the fighters appearing in the capital. Those that did not seek to swear allegiance to Mokushu.

They rounded a few more corners, adjusting the bundle of linens in their arms. Gradually, the crowds grew more sparse, and the buildings less colorful, until they were on the western outskirts of the city, where a forest of pines intruded on the otherwise soft palette of Shirasagi.

They ducked down some more alleys, up some stairs, before arriving at a cluster of small shrines situated a short distance from the main road. Priests and monks wandered alongside women and children.

They entered the largest of the shrines, though this did not say much. The inside was dimly lit, but a few more children ran across the wooden floor, fleeing when they noticed the outsider at the steps.

A robed, older woman approached, giving the ninja a wary look. She glanced at the bundle in their arms.

"This is… the orphanage?" They asked, stiff.

"Yes…" she frowned. "The Kohga_jin_ told me of you. Come in, please. We welcome all here."

The ninja did as told, but there was a hesitance in their step that did not slip last the woman.

"We may be Hoshidans, yes - but we act based on the actions of our noble king, Sumeragi. He once took in a foreigner without a name or title or lands, provided her with shelter, safety… Nurtured her, fell in love with her, eventually accepted her as one of his own, as did Hoshido. Regardless of whatever her past might have entailed. Kindness towards the weak and forlorn, sharing prosperity. That is the lesson King Sumeragi taught us, and the idea we wish to practice. In times such as these, it may be… an unpopular idea… but we do not falter. Come, now." She beckoned the ninja further in. "The child must be attended to."

-*-

  
**SHIRASAGI**  
  
  


Shirasagi stood as a testament to the royal family's closeness to the gods, its towers reaching high into the sky, a pillar of hope, strength, and wealth to the people of Hoshido. It was situated atop a crest of land, with the town far below, a few steep paths coiling their way up the rocky outcropping to the castle gates. Clouds drifted harmlessly along the cliffs, dusting the fields that lay around the castle grounds. The sun smiled down on the Hoshidan capital, and a pleasant breeze driven by the not-so-distant ocean rolled across the land towards the west. Birds sang and danced in the sky, landing every now and then on the castle without a care in the world.

The interior of the palace was not always as quiet as one might expect, though, with the Queen's messengers, maids, allies and subjects moving briskly through the hallways, always doing this or that, enthused and dedicated to serving the crown. Nice as it was to believe, Hoshido's peace was not self-sustaining; rather, it was the hard work of its rulers that kept it as prosperous and tranquil as it had been for the past hundred or so years.

Higher up in the castle, things calmed down a bit. The royal children took quarter here, along with the Queen herself. Bright colors filled the space, tans and scarlets, summer-greens and saffrons. Sunlight poured in through the windows such that it was only ever cold in the dead of winter. Someone had an impressive plant collection, filling the windowsills with potted flowers and vegetation that flourished in the light.

This is the way the upper floors of Shirasagi had been for years, since the high prince was still a newborn swaddled in his mother's arms. Unchanging, no matter how much the world around them might shift.

Now, it brought him peace, despite the turmoil their kingdom was facing and the hardships they'd experienced over the past decade or so. Of all his father's lessons, Ryoma thought on that one the most - to keep a level head no matter what happened, to not let your personal feelings interfere with your ability to be king, and, above all, keep yourself at peace. He took to meditating much because of that, even if it had bored him before his father had passed. He was the eldest, the foundation of the family; his siblings had to be able to build off him, and he had to be strong enough for them to stand upon his shoulders.

Even so, however, there were still matters he needed to take into his own hands. For all his privilege, there was still dirty work to be done.

The Queen had called him up to their family's quarters, that day. She hadn't said why, but he had an inkling of what it could be. Even so, he didn't falter as he padded through the quiet halls, socks scuffing softly against the floor.

His mother was kneeled at a table, accompanied by three of her personal guard as they shipped at tea together. A plate of cakes sat off to the side, half-eaten. When he entered, she murmured something to the others. Two of her guard stood and departed, but the third remained, eyeing him meticulously. Orochi, one of her mother's closest friends, a crafty woman by all means but with no lack of loyalty to the crown. 

When he saw the other woman was not going to be leaving, he continued into the room, sliding the door shut behind him. "Mother," he greeted as he took a seat at the other side of the table, folding his legs. "What would you have of me?"

She had been pouring him a cup of tea, but slowed at the stiffness of his tone, eventually pushing the kettle aside and folding her hands in her lap. "I suppose you'd like me to get right to the point, Ryoma."

He hummed. "I don't suppose you summoned me here just to share a pot of tea." _Even if I _would _like to have a cup, mother._

"Very well," she continued, expression etched in some vague sorrow. "I know you are in a rush after all, Ryoma. Is it true, then? That you're off to Nohr. To Cheve?"

He'd been expecting the blow, but it still came as a shock to him. He and his retainers had worked dutifully to keep the expedition under wraps - even half the party he planned on taking south with him, to Mokushu, _they_ weren't privy to his whole plan, didn't know he intended to stow away aboard a Nestra-bound ship and make for the foreign nation of knights. He could count the number of people that knew on his fingers. _So how? Unless this is merely a guess on her part? _His eyes flicked to Orochi, narrowing. The woman gave nothing away, only smiled, eyes glowing with amusement.

"Of course I would find out, Ryoma," his mother continued, lips curved up in a sad sort of way. "In the end I am still queen, and by my will or not, the castle is mine. The walls speak to me, or so they say…" He'd seen that smile so many times. So many times since his father had passed, since _Corrin_ had, Corrin, her one trueborn daughter… a pang of guilt hit him then.

"Mother, I understand where your fears come from..." He stared into his lap, brow furrowing. "I won't say I don't have my own doubts about journeying to the place Father was killed. I know you are probably thinking of that even now." He didn't need to spare a look at her face. It was clear enough. Everyone had told him he'd grown into the spitting image of his late father. The thought of following in his footsteps, all the way to his grave, plagued him at night still, but he hadn't allowed himself to falter in his mission up until now - and he wouldn't, still. "...But it has to be me. Not Hinoka, not Takumi - Sakura can't get involved in any of this." He raised his eyes again, holding his chin high. "I am capable of this. Remember that."

Mikoto sighed. "I didn't say you weren't, Ryoma..." The hesitance was there, still.

He sat up straighter. "The Nohrians lied and schemed when they took Father. Invited him under the guise of peace. I will have my guard up, Mother. It won't be the same. I ask you to believe me on that." Then, jaw clenched, he placed both hands on the floor and sank into a deep bow. "_Please. _Don't bar me from leaving, Mother. This has to be done. We can't wait any longer. The barrier will not last forever, and I..." He took a breath, steadied himself. "I will not stand by and wait for the Nohrians to invade our kingdom. This is our chance to strike first, before they can bolster their defenses, and I mean to take it, Mother."

She was quiet for a long time, then, and the only sound was the ticking of a clock a few rooms over, along with the distant hum of the wind as it passed by the highest points of the castle. A minute passed and he sat up. Mikoto's expression was nothing but impassive. Her eyes were, as they had been for so long now, tired. Sad.

Inside, Ryoma lamented. _I'm sorry I cannot bring Corrin back to you, Mother. I know nothing will fill the hole her death made, no matter how much you love the rest of us. I cannot right that wrong. But there are things I _can _do. I can prevent Nohr from taking anything else from our family. I can avenge Corrin. I can make up for what a lousy brother I was to her. I can protect Hinoka and Takumi and Sakura. Please, Mother, permit me to do that much._

-*-

**NOTRE SAGESSE**

The doors shut with a resounding _bang._

High up in the mountains of Notre Sagesse, where clouds seemed to meld into stone, where the trees grew small due to lack of oxygen and where vapor clung to the sheer stone cliffs lay a massive temple. The Sevenfold Sanctuary, it was known as, though with the war, few held much interest in the region aside from Port Dia. The seas separating the two nations were treacherous; the few non-military vessels found nowadays were pirates, and the port city found itself more often than not plagued by raids. Yet even then the Sevenfold Sanctuary and its few treasures stood strong, no thanks to its mysterious figurehead, a man known as the Rainbow Sage.

He stood across the hall from the main gates, staring after the guest who had just departed. By the doors stood four guardsmen, heavily-padded and wielding wicked-looking naginatas. Luckily, things had not yet reached the point where they had to be used – not seriously, at least.

At the Sage’s bare feet lay a sword. It shone a strange gold in the daylight, with four indentations in the blade. The man knew this weapon well, though it had been a very long time since he had laid his eyes upon it.

Finally, he leaned down, the motion slowed and inhibited by his worn bones. Then he wrapped a hand around its hilt and lifted, weighing it in his grip, eyes running along the handiwork of the grip and the engravings on the flat of the blade. Beneath his bushy facial hair, his lips rose into a smile, and there was a twinkle in the crimson of his eyes. “My… It’s been some time now, hasn’t it… since I’ve seen this.”

The guardsmen around him shifted, wondering if they should help out, but chose to stay and give the Sage time.

He let out a long sigh, tightening his grip on the sword and turning to retreat back into the heart of the temple. Nodding to the guards, he said, “With this, hope returns. Even if war surrounds us on all sides… the return of this sword tells us it will not last.”

Later, after the sun had sunken beneath the mountain peaks and distant ocean, as the Sage was settling down at his bedroll, a knock sounded through his chambers. Someone was rapping at the door. He sat up, giving them leave to enter.

The door slid open with _snap, _and a monk stood in the gap, his eyes two big, white circles in the darkness. “Master,” he began.

“Yes?” said the Sage, still sitting patiently atop his bedroll.

“We have guests,” he said. “It is as you said. Garon’s…”

“Hmm…”

“…and… another.”

The Sage’s eyes landed on the blade, the gold dim and inconspicuous in the dark of the night. _Your daughter has come to pay me a visit, Anankos, _he thought. _Fate is at last taking its aim at you. Soon… Soon I’ll be able to rest. _

“I will see to them in the morning.”


	2. Homecoming, II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Nohrian Royals convene at the Palace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unimportant but the last chapter in part 1 now has a couple random sketch stuff based off the fic attached at the bottom, theyve just been sitting in my drafts over the past few months and i dont have the time or motivation now to really finish them or polish stuff (i wish i did!!! doing regular illustrations for this would be hella fun!!) BUT yeah

**KRAKENBURG**

Guards ushered in the crown prince and his entourage as a thousand or so pairs of eyes watched on from either side of the grand entrance hall, unblinking. The reason for their interest was obvious; this was the first they were seeing of the prince in nearly two years, and the creature strolling stiffly beside him stirred similar intrigue, though garnered fear as well, many stepping back or tensing as the procession shambled by. It was no warm welcome by any means. They simply observed, a primal sort of curiosity driving them to know what had become of the king’s firstborn son.

He rode indifferent atop his horse, greathelm obscuring any expression he might’ve held from onlookers. All things considered, there were a few more nicks in his armor, his hair was a bit longer, and the shape of his jaw had grown sharper some, but to the naked eye he was still the same warrior that left the palace on a mission to quell the Ice Tribe’s rebellion so long ago. 

Through the next set of doors, the audience changed. Crowds of noble families and royal associates vanished, replaced by military leaders, strategists, politicians, ambassadors, generals - many were gathered, but their numbers were scant compared to the flocks of bodies in the first hall.

They were much more receptive to the prince, though still wary of his dragon. Once they managed to split the two apart, he was swarmed, forced to dismount as they greeted him, shook his hand, patted him on the shoulder, asked of his conquests… and the prince was all but overwhelmed. _Conquests_, he’d think, left to wonder at what they could’ve been referring to until he picked up the words _ice tribe _and _Kilma _and _Dragonfall_, then his skin would crawl at the realization that word-of-mouth had likely turned the events that transpired there into some kind of glorious Nohrian victory wrought by his own hands… and not the messy disasters they really were.

Still, he smiled and shook hands and spent more time than he would’ve liked catching up with faces that’d begun to blur in his memory. Then, at last, they made for the final set of doors, tall and heavy, black laced with silver, doors the prince had set his eyes upon countless times throughout his childhood. They were pulled open for him, but the guards stopped there, drifting back and allowing them to close without following him inside. That left him with his retainers and the dragon, however as they moved to cross the floor to the faraway throne, a voice boomed out across the hall.

“Xander. Join us. Your retainers shall leave.”

The two scooted before he could spare a glance over his shoulder, forcing him to continue forward without them by his side. Somehow he felt vulnerable, even with Siegfried at his hip. The princess remained… but there wasn’t a chance she was in a good state of mind right now, if she was anything like him she would’ve put her mind somewhere far, far away from Krakenburg and would stay there.

The prince approached the throne, taking his place beside his three siblings who had arrived beforehand. They gawked at the dragon; he kept his focus on the crimson rug beneath him as he knelt down and set his helmet beside him.

“Father,” he said, feeling a little more of his soul drift away from his body by the second, “I return to your service.”

“So you have,” said Garon from atop his throne, disinterested, vacant. His eyes were but red glints within their sunken, dark sockets, his hair frayed at the ends. Still, he wore the same armor, and Bolverk still rested aside his chair, observing in silence. The prince fought not to spare a glance at Corrin. _I wonder if this is what she has seen, looking upon him, all this time. _Where there’d existed some kind of block in his mind before, preventing him from associating his father directly with the person responsible for murdering the king of Hoshido and imprisoning the princess, now, somehow, Xander could see the figure in front of him filling such a role. It left a feeling of unease in his gut, like he was adrift in the middle of a storm-addled ocean on nothing but a makeshift raft. _Doubt._

“I am pleased with what you have accomplished,” he rumbled, gaze moving to the dragon. “Even if we lost a portion of our force in the process… The Ice Tribe has been quelled, and now Cheve as well. You children are worthy of your blood.”

Prince Leo and Princess Camilla shared a glance. The latter had been their doing, though the execution of it had taken months of difficult work, in a difficult country, under a difficult set of circumstances. “...Thank you, Father,” Leo finally said, head bowed.

The formalities went on. King Garon introduced a number of generals that would be taking key positions in the war, some familiar faces to the royals, some new. Many of the less-familiar figures were dark-knights or others in the magi family, originating from Iago’s inner circle… which made sense when Garon elaborated that they would make good use of the Faceless masses that his senior advisor had conjured up.

They moved to a council hall afterwards, and from there the discussion dragged on for hours. Ultimately the role of the royal children themselves was simple; Leo and Camilla would direct their armies towards the Bottomless Canyon, taking the bulk of the Nohrian forces with them to face Hoshidan defenses head-on in a spearhead assault at the border. Prince Xander would lead a much smaller assembly southward, to Port Dia and across the sea. Nohr had subtly worked out an alliance with the kingdom of Mokushu that would serve as a foothold in southern Hoshido; from there, they could scout north, slowly creating a path through enemy territory that Garon and Iago, with a larger army beside them, could follow behind when the timing was right. The goal was to hide the true strength of the southern invasion, draw most of Hoshido’s forces west to the border, then once the stars were aligned Garon’s fist would descend upon the capital, the southern army riding like a storm up the path picked out by Xander and sweeping towards the heart of the nation. If they could capture Fort Jinya, that could become a secondary foothold, and if all went well with Camilla and Leo, the three forces could rendezvous there and set their sights on Shirasagi.

The prince was only grateful that his role did not involve commanding an entire army. While he excelled at that, the smaller the better for the sake of escorting Princess Corrin to safety without being discovered. The idea that King Garon and Iago would be some ways behind them at all times was less comforting. While it was established they should always be a fortnight’s ride behind, perhaps more, until they united in the heart of Hoshido, it put unwelcome pressure on the prince to watch himself. 

There was one minor complication in all of this, however.

“That was so _boring,_” Elise complained, puffing out her cheeks. “I don’t even get why we’re going to war. None of it makes any sense.”

Xander looked down at his sister as they walked the halls surrounding the throne, towards their quarters. Corrin skulked on a distance behind them, an amalgamation of silver and orange flashes in the dim light of the braziers, silent. Elise had been oddly unfazed by her company; she’d gathered round the dragon to look on in awe, same as Camilla and Leo at first, but once they split off from the others Xander asked she allow some space for the dragon’s comfort, and that she did. There was no fear, no glancing over her shoulder in unease, nothing.

Even _Laslow_ was more frightened by Corrin, and he himself knew the truth about her. Elise had always been a brave girl… brave, or just very naïve.

His thoughts returned to her earlier statement, and his brow furrowed. “Conquest is as much a necessity for us as it has always been, Elise. You know that.”

She sighed, her steps dragging a little more. She was as bubbly as he remembered her being, but somehow a bit more defiant, too. _Leo mentioned she’s had her nose buried in books. I’ll have to ask the palace librarians what it is she’s been reading. _He changed the subject. “I see you’ve dyed your hair.”

The girl brought a hand up to touch her pigtails, smiling brightly as her fingers brushed the stripes of lavender and blue in question. “Yeah!”

His lips quirked, and he paused in hesitation for a moment, the thudding of their footsteps filling the silence for a brief moment. “You must be fourteen now, right?”

“Yep!” Elise grinned. “Father says I’m ready to go do battle stuff with you and the others. Even if I don’t support it, I’m really glad!” She latched onto his arm. “I never get to see you anymore, and even Leo and Camilla have been so distant! I would hate to be cooped up in the castle while you guys get to go to Hoshido. It’s been so booooooring.”

Part of Xander’s chest warmed, but a fierce chill crept up his spine even then. In the end, what was happening was clear; she was going to a battlefield, she was going into a war, she was going to experience everything that’d robbed him of his innocence and there was little he could do to stop that from happening. “Are Effie and Arthur not as welcome company as they used to be?”

She frowned up at him, then. “No, no, no. They’re still my favorite people in the _whole _castle…” Letting go, she spun around and walked backwards in front of him. “But a girl’s gotta stretch her legs! Father’s gotten so mean and strict lately, a lot of scary soldiers are living in the palace now, and all my friends are too busy getting ready to fight to play with me. Not to mention Camilla’s been stuck in Cheve, and Azura…” her face fell suddenly, and she stopped, bringing Xander to a halt as well.

“We’ll save her,” Xander offered at the forlorn way his sister’s face had turned. “If she’s still alive. I’ll do my best, Elise. I need you to, as well.”

They kept walking, the princess shifting so they were side-by-side again. Her head was bowed, pigtails swaying at her side. “The blue’s for her,” she said after a while.

He blinked. “Hm?”

“The purple was for Camilla,” Elise went on, voice subdued, dry, sad. “The blue streaks were for Azura. I never got to show her, though. I didn’t even get to see her before she left.”

Xander didn’t know what to say. The girl began to sniffle, then take shuddering breaths, and finally sobbed. _Don’t cry, _he wanted to tell her, feeling darkness seep into his heart like the plug of a drain had been pulled. _Please, don’t cry. Not you. That’s my burden, not yours, Elise. Please._

When she was crying so hard that she began to stumble with each step, they stopped, and he got down on one knee to embrace her in the darkness of the hallway. Somewhere in the shadows he felt Corrin’s gaze on them, and for once he wished she was far away. 

-*-

“Where are they off to, I wonder?”

Niles was referring to the three royal retainers crossing the narrow bridge connecting the castle keep of Krakenburg to the surrounding walls that ringed it. Odin, Selena and Laslow walked side-by-side, chattering animatedly - they were far out of earshot by now, but the joy they had at seeing each other again was clear enough to anyone watching, and every now and then one of their laughs would echo down to where he stood, a few levels below at the main military training grounds.

“Who knows,” muttered Silas, leaning against a nearby pillar. He shrugged. “I never realized how good friends Selena was with Odin until this past year. It’s so strange. He’s such a weirdo, he doesn’t really seem like the type of person she would get along with.”

Beruka, who was seated over by a weapon rack, glanced over her shoulder and gave the knight a judgmental glance, but said nothing more.

Niles spoke for her. “_Please_. As if you’re much better, Silas. I used to think you and I were different as night and day, but it’s clear we have similar… well, _interests_.”

Red crept up Silas’s neck and over his ears. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“_Please_, I’ve heard you groaning to yourself. _Step on me more, Princess Camilla!”_

The red turned into a furious crimson. “I- how dare- how immature can you-”

“Niles.” Leo’s authoritative tone rang through the air, jolting both the archer and the knight. The prince had emerged from whatever meeting the king had held him at for so long. “A word, if you please.”

The retainer pushed himself off the wall and prowled after his liege, sparing Silas one last sultry glance. “Catch you later, bottom.” 

As they departed, Arthur uncrossed his arms and approached Silas. A heavy hand landed on the knight’s shoulder, giving him a good pat. “Now-now, boy. There’s no need to feel ashamed. The princess is a beautiful woman indeed, and-”

“Arthur, _please. _I’m not a child.”

“Right, well, glad we’re cutting this short. This is admittedly not my strong suite.” He removed his hand and crossed his arms again, looking the other way. “I have not heard the entire story about what transpired in Cheve, and I am admittedly a bit curious. Rumor has it, it was bloody,” he added, changing the subject.

“We got the job done,” Beruka piped up from her spot as she ran a whetstone along the length of an axe. “And both Lady Camilla and Prince Leo are alive. That is what matters.”

Effie had posted herself further inside the enclave, keeping an eye out for signs of Princess Elise, but spun around at the new discussion. “Didn’t you have friends there, Silas? Being a knight and all.”

He sighed. “My family had connections there, yeah. I used to visit a lot, growing up, and when I was a squire. Most of my friends were in the Pervenche family, though… and they stayed loyal to Nohr. The other two families, though…” His expression twisted. “Let’s not talk about it. Not right now.”

“They got what was coming,” Beruka said, tone flat. “We did nothing wrong.”

Yet clearly, the nicks and chips on Silas’s armor weren’t the only scars he was dealt in the year-long culling.

“Boo, I wish I’d been there,” Peri had been practicing her stance and grounded attacks in a dizzying whirl of pink-blue and silver. “Prince Xander hasn’t been giving me a whole lotta work. None of the fun stuff, at least. It’s been so boring.”

Effie sighed, falling onto her back and sending a resounding _CLANG _through the entryway. “You guys have been in Eastvale the past year, haven’t you? I’m pretty jealous… I could use a vacation, granted being on the road messes with my exercise routines.”

Arthur nodded in agreement. “King Garon has kept Lady Elise all but trapped here. It makes sense, there hasn’t exactly been safe passage to the southern cities with everything that’s been happening. Even then, Effie and I don’t have much sway outside of the princess’s sphere, given, erm…”

“Given we’re lowborn,” Effie finished for him, stretching her arms out above her head.

“From the sound of it, that’ll change soon, though,” said Peri gleefully. “We’re gonna march on Hoshido, right? One way or another, you’re royal retainers. The king won’t just leave you here. That’d be a waste!” She paused in her exercises, resting a hand on one hip. “I mean, lookit Effie! She’s a one woman army!”

The large woman didn’t look happy about the comment. “That would mean Lady Elise would see the battlefield, though… and that’s the last thing I want happening. She’s not like the other royals. She wasn’t made to fight and kill.” Her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

“...I thought the same of Princess Azura,” said Silas after watching the girl for a moment. He took a seat against the pillar and stared up at the grumbling sky to his left. “And look what happened with her. The Hoshidan queen… I can hardly believe it.”

A cloud fell over the group, then, bringing silence with it. A patrol of wyvern-riders flew by, then another. The grounds were still and empty where they’d been bustling in the past. Everyone was busy mobilizing and preparing for war. Elise’s retainers could still recall a time they’d see Azura sparring here, beneath the shadows of the pillars or out on the larger adjacent platform with the new recruits, chattering with Odin at the weapons rack or speaking quietly with Niles by the range section.

“...Maybe she’s with her mother now,” pondered Arthur, voice subdued and heavy with sorrow. “I can hope. She never seemed happy here...”

Effie hummed in agreement. “I wish there was more we could’ve done. She was a sweet girl, just…”

More quiet, filled with the sound of Peri’s lance cutting through air as she continued her lunges, and a rhythmic scraping as Beruka continued sharpening her axe.

“She _was _happy, I think,” Silas muttered, playing with one of his gauntlets in his hands. “At some point when we were in Cheve. Not as much as she should’ve been, but she smiled and talked a lot. I never knew her when she lived in the castle, but Lady Camilla said she used to be sad all the time. I think she was starting to open up before Iago took her away.” He furrowed her brow. “I could never imagine her _assassinating _the - “ he stole a look at Beruka, then, “Err, excuse my tone.”

The woman raised a hand in dismissal.

“...That’s nice to hear, at least, I guess,” Effie managed as she powered through crunches. “I never got to know her well, but Lady Elise was fond of her.”

“Y-yes,” Silas took an uncomfortable breath. “Err, speaking of fondness…” He sighed, fidgeted a bit more. “...He’d hate for me to tell you guys this, but I think she and Niles grew pretty close when we were in Cheve. If you, ah, catch my drift. That, or Lady Camilla was totally getting the wrong signals… but she’s hardly ever wrong about that kind of thing.”

Beruka glared over her shoulder again, with a leer that could turn a man to stone. “_Silas_. That isn’t the kind of thing you should be sharing.”

“_Niles?_” Arthur’s face screwed up. “And... Princess Azura? You must be mistaken,” he said with a befuddled chuckle.

A range of emotions ran across Effie’s face. “He’s not really the kind of guy _I_ would chase after if I was royalty, but…” She rolled onto her side. “...Azura never had any sort of prejudice against me and Arthur, despite being high-born to the bone. And I did see them together a lot, back when she was still posted in the palace. Y’know? Kinda makes sense if I think about it.” The blonde shifted her gaze to the dark hallway beyond her, where the prince and his retainer had disappeared to. “...If that’s true, though… that guy must actually be in a lot of pain right now, right?”

Arthur hummed to himself, finding the whole situation perplexing. “If he was, he wasn’t exactly showing it.”

“...Not everyone is as open a book as you are,” Beruka muttered, back still turned to the group.

"Hey, she had a retainer, didn't she?" piped the doll-knight, twirling her spear over her head before drawing it down in a deadly arc and splitting the helm of a training dummy clean in two. Beads of sweat rolled down her temple. "The butler? What ever happened to _him_?"

The others exchanged glances with each other, unknowing. 

"...If he was serious," Effie started, "he'd have protected her to the very end."

Arthur frowned. "...We can only hope we won't be put into the same situation soon though, if Lady Elise is truly to be put on the battlefield."

"I won't let anything happen to her," responded the girl resolutely. 

Silas curled up, then, resting his chin on his knees. “I still can’t believe Princess Azura is gone. I… I didn’t even get to say goodbye, the day she left. It all happened so fast. I was grateful enough that nobody close to me died in Cheve… now I get out of that hellhole only to find out she’s…” He shook his head, hair ruffling with the movement, then abruptly stood. “...Sorry. I need to excuse myself. Let’s meet up later, okay guys?”

-*-

When Xander returned to the throne room later that evening, it was significantly darker; none of the chandeliers lining the ceiling were aflame, and only a few meager clusters of candles here and there lit his path. The throngs of generals were gone, shadows and gloom filling their place. He drew his gaze away from the yawning dark and towards his father, who looked more a corpse than a man atop his seat, yet the glinting of his eyes told him someone or something still remained. 

“Father,” he began when he reached the end of the hall, kneeling once more. His retainers were not by his side, nor was Princess Corrin, this time. Only Siegfried. He’d come of his own accord, seeking answers he hadn’t been provided earlier. Answers about Azura. “My apologies for disturbing you at this hour…” _Disturbing your rest, _he’d wanted to say, but his father hadn’t even removed his armor for the day yet…

“Xander.” Garon’s voice was hoarse. “Speak.”

The prince swallowed, blinked, then held his chin up. “I… was curious about what happened with Azura. I am unsure of what exactly transpired; resources close to me have given me multiple different accounts…”

“You are a smart boy, Son. Bright. I am sure you have figured it out for yourself already.”

Red eyes flashed up at his father’s. “I would like to hear it from you.”

Garon shifted in his seat, leaning against one hand as he considered Xander’s request. “…Very well. The deed is done, so I suppose there is no harm in telling you.” 

He caught himself before he let his reaction to the words reach his face. _What is that supposed to mean?_

“Iago and myself sent Azura there with the sole intent of downing the queen. An assassin, if you may, but the girl was hardly the wiser; or if she did have an inkling of what was going on, she did nothing to stop it. We gave her a weapon, you see… a hidden weapon, one she likely was not even aware of.” 

_Azura… She was not in on this after all. She didn’t kill the queen, at least did not have the intent to…_

Urgency filled him then, and his legs protested beneath him, begging to straighten and carry him out of the throne room. _I have to tell Princess Corrin._

Garon smiled, then, his eyes glazing over. “I have Iago to thank for constructing it, however it is a _greater _force that bestowed the material upon me in the first place, and granted me the means to create it.” He stood, then, raising both hands and tilting his head back. “Anankos… I am indebted to you.”

A deafening silence descended on them, Garon as still as a statue. Xander followed his gaze, up, up, until he found that same odd carving on the ceiling. His lips curled into a frown.

He could remember a time that the statue wasn’t there, but oddly, Xander could not recall when it was placed, or around what age he’d started to see it.

_...Anankos…_

“Were you aware, Xander,” suddenly the King’s tenor was there, jolting the prince out of his daze. “I’m sure you were – that there was an attempted kidnapping of Azura when you were children. Multiple, really – but all were thwarted. Iago kept her well-guarded...”

Xander could not forget. He tried, as he did with much of the childhood trauma associated with his half-siblings from the concubine wars. Some he managed to block out completely, some still skulked through his dreams sometimes. “By Hoshido…” 

“Yes,” said Garon. A pause. _Because of Corrin, _it dawned on Xander, though he kept the thought buried deep within him. _Retaliation. Or maybe they thought they could trade one princess for the other… _His brow furrowed. _Both of them treated like nothing but pieces in a game of chess… Father never would have done it, either. Corrin was worth more to him than Azura, at least at the time. He would have let them do what they wished with her._

“A Nohrian princess,” the king continued. “She was sure to be captured and brought to the capital as a hostage, should she be on the losing side of a battle with the Hoshidans. They would not simply kill her and send me her head. Her value would be too high, in their eyes… With this in mind, we sent her off with the weapon on her person. Perhaps it was a gamble… but fate was on our side, Son.” He sat back down. “The queen is dead, and her barrier has fallen along with her.” 

Xander felt ill. “…What became of Azura, then?”

Garon’s gaze met his, unyielding. “Azura’s fate? I know about as well as any other. If the weapon worked to its full extent, she will be dead. If by some miracle she survived…” He chuckled, the sound echoing across the hall over and over, making the hairs on the back of Xander’s neck stand up. “She has murdered their queen. It wouldn’t be long before the Hoshidans lopped off her head and waved it around on a pike... Justice, justice is what they want… Justice for their king and his scrap of a daughter,” a chill ran up his spine, “justice for their queen, and with the barrier down they will come running right to our doorstep. We will meet them with all our strength, Xander. Prepare yourself. This is what your life has been working towards. This is your part to play. We will meet their justice and their folly with sword and blood, and wash over their lands as we did with Kilma and Cheve.”

Xander bowed his head.

“Yes, Father.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im tired of writing krakenburg scenes!! thankfully this is probably going to be the very last one we see for a loooooong time


	3. Cheve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> glimpses into the nohrian assault on the dukedom of cheve.

Felicia peeked out through the gap in the door, hand trembling on its handle. But one look was all that was needed; she quickly slammed it shut, retreating back into the room, trying to take deep breaths. _If Flora were here… If Flora were here, she would be brave… _

Seating herself by the window, she peered out to the castle yards below. The scene was the same as the hallway had been; knights in black and violet were everywhere, the Nohrian sigil adorning their tabards and cloaks. _When are they going to leave? _Will _they ever leave?_

She wished Flora was here, for the umpteenth time. Or Lady Azura, or Jakob, anyone really. But last she’d heard, the two had vanished. She had no one to turn to and nowhere to run to, and… if one of the Nohrians recognized her, then, then…

She chewed at a nail and tried not to think of the worst that could happen.

Some time later that night, there was a knock at the door. It didn’t sound like one of the servants; it was louder, stronger, more urgent. Felicia’s heart was ready to burst out of her chest, and she considered hiding beneath the cot that’d been left for her when she heard a voice.

“Open up,” it was hushed, but recognizable. “Please.”

“L-lady Pervenche…?” Felicia stood, approaching the door on her toes and creaking it an inch way’s open.

Sure enough, the tall woman was there. She wore a thick, wool cloak with the hood drawn as though she’d been outside. Concern was etched into her features. “May I?”

When she was inside and had seated herself at the small, round table that sat by the window, Felicia locked the door again and instinctively went to work on a kettle of tea. The duchess did not wait for it to finish before she began speaking.

“You need to leave. We can wait no longer.”

Felicia twitched in alarm, accidentally knocking the kettle off the burner and spilling some of the tea onto the stovetop. She rushed to clean it. “W-what?”

“The Nohrians plan to use my estate as their base camp. They’re welcome to it – not like I have much of a say in the matter. It seems the central keep downtown is not tactically advantageous given we are fighting guerilla rebels that seem to come out of and vanish into the woodwork. So they’re helping themselves to my fortress.”

Felicia cleaned up the last of the mess and got back to brewing the tea. She spared an apprehensive look over her shoulder. “B-but didn’t you say… it was too risky for me to leave?”

“Yes,” said the woman, leaning back in the chair and staring out the window. “It is. But we have no choice. My own country will soon become too chaotic a place for you to hide away in. And you obviously cannot return to Nohr…” She shook her head in frustration. “…If only Kilma hadn’t been such a stubborn man… Endangering his daughters like this…”

The maid pulled two cups from the cupboard and served the duchess her tea before tentatively taking the seat across from her. She sipped meekly at the drink. “T-then…”

Pervenche’s gaze was intimidating. She was upwards of six feet tall, with a long face and fierce eyes. Her skin was marred with scars from battle, and they only accentuated her beauty. She’d once said she’d been on this planet sixty years and had been holding a lance for fifty-nine of those. Certainly, she looked it. “Listen to me, Felicia. I am going to help you. This will be hard, but if you stay strong you will prevail.” She then reached beneath her cloak, into the pocket of her vest and drew out a folded piece of parchment. Sliding it across the table, she said, “Take it.”

Felicia did as told, setting her tea aside. “W-what…”

“I’ve secured passage across the sea for you.” Pervenche sat up straighter, taking another look out the window as if she might see the ocean from here. “That will ensure you are able to board the ship. I know the captain personally. She is a merchant, and a dear friend of mine. Go to Port Dia. How you get there is up to you. Slip in with the Nohrians until you reach the southern border, disguise yourself as a hermit, whatever it takes. But do it soon. Things will be getting messy in the coming weeks, and I don’t think it will let up for a long time. Once you’re there, find her ship. _The Tide Witch – _the name is on the parchment, too. It leaves on the summer solstice. Have you ever taken to sea before, Felicia?”

All of it was almost too much for the maid to process. She looked from the duchess, back to the parchment, back to the duchess, mouth slack, then shook her head.

A slanted smile made its way on to the woman’s lips. “You will soon. I prefer flying, but beggars can’t be choosers. Be careful what you eat on the first day, it’s like to come back up.” Then the smile was gone, and her features were grim again. “We in Chevois may not be the most religious of people anymore, but I cannot stand by and let the last member of the Ice Tribe die out. It’s just not right.” She folded her arms, humming in thought. “Is it treason? You were Garon’s prisoner after all, and it was Garon who called for your death, to my knowledge. So perhaps it is… but if anything the crown prince is the true traitor here, for letting you go in the first place. If Garon wants anyone’s head first, it should be his.” Then she reached across the table, pressing a warm hand atop one of Felicia’s still-shaky fists. “But he won’t. He won’t find out.” She squeezed. “Leave, run away, to Nestra or to an island or Izumo, anywhere but here. Izumo would be the safest… the ruler there is quirky, certainly, but he will keep you guarded.”

Felicia didn’t even know what to say. Why would a duchess, allied with Nohr, want to protect her? What good was being heir to the Ice Tribe if it was wiped out now? Flora had always been the responsible one, the most likely heir, Felicia… she wasn’t much of anything.

Still, though, she clutched the parchment together and nodded at the noblewoman. “T-thank you. I’ll do my best.”

-*-

Rain pounded down atop the stone turrets of a massive fortress of a castle. Rivers wrapped around it on either side, hugging the walls, and serving as a sort of natural moat, but with the bad weather they were swelling over their banks and spilling onto the road around.

“Silas.”

Soldiers lined the riverbanks in a perfect arc, rows upon rows extending out beyond them and filling the city streets across the way. All stood facing the castle, most impervious to the harsh winds and rain, a few shaking their helmets or cursing to themselves. The overflow from the streams reached the boots of the first three or so lines, but for the most part they ignored it.

“Silas.”

It had been a long time reaching here. He never even thought it _would _come to this. The rebels had stood as their own faction. Why would an entire _family _of the Chevois governing power ally with them? When the enemy was the might of the Nohrian army? It didn’t make any sense. Did they think they had some chance of winning? Did they have a weapon stashed away somewhere? Or were they just stuck in their ways? He couldn’t understand it. _Why throw away so many lives against the inevitable? Even if the Nohrian rule has issues… Can’t they solve it some other way? _It didn’t make sense. _Can’t they negotiate with the king?_

When he’d asked the other soldiers about it, they’d scoffed. “They’re out of their minds,” they’d say, “radical, they want to kick us out of Cheve so they can amass their own army and attack _us,” _“Our rule isn’t even that bad, we keep them fed and we protect them from Hoshidans, what’s the big deal?” “If they were all like the Pervenche family, we wouldn’t have any issues.” He kept his own opinions on the matter to himself. Since the main Nohrian forces had arrived in Cheve, tensions had spiked, as had accusations against each party to the point where it was hard to tell what you were supposed to believe, if anything. _It doesn’t matter, _he’d always told himself, _you’re a knight of Nohr and you follow the King’s orders. _

“Silas!”

Still, looking up at the castle before him, he felt less a knight and more a boy. Marching on small encampments inside and outside the city was one thing… locating and capturing rebel camps in the countryside, that sort of thing had been different. But this? This was a _castle, _he’d never taken place in a siege of a _castle _before. And this was a noble family, one of the ruling three of Cheve, they had knights in the Nohrian army, Silas had friends from these families. He’d visited this place a few times in his youth. They were always kind to him. He just couldn’t wrap his mind around why they’d chosen to throw in their lot with the rebellion, after months worth of losses against the Nohrian army.

He looked up at the banners hanging from the towering walls. They were blue and black, presently being pounded by rain. A dozen faces came to mind at the sight of it alone.

“Silas!” A hand shook his shoulder. “Get a fucking hold of yourself!”

“S-sorry,” he muttered, peeling his gaze away from the looming fortress before them and over to the girl on his right.

Selena’s twin-tails were whipping behind her in the wind. “Snap out of it, man.” The bite was gone from her tone, though. _She probably knows, _he figured.

“Sorry,” he managed, giving a weak smile. “I’m alright.”

Her brow furrowed over her eyes as he turned her focus to the castle. “_Are_ you, though? Your friends are in there, right? You sure you don’t want to sit this one out?”

He shook his head. “I-I couldn’t. I’m loyal to Nohr-“

“You don’t need to _prove _anything,” she balked.

He could almost laugh. _As if you’re one to talk, come on, Selena. _“I’m going. It’ll be fine.”

She sighed. “Whatever. Just don’t worry too much about watching Lady Camilla’s back, alright? Me and Beruka got this covered.” She gave a thumbs-up with one soaked-through gauntlet. “Just focus on yourself and your squad.”

He eyed the set of cavaliers standing idle behind him, then nodded at the woman. “Yeah. You got it.”

Camilla’s other retainer was on Selena’s right, a scary sight to behold. She sat atop her wyvern, greathelm covering her head. A nasty-looking spear was hoisted in her arms.

The princess was just beyond her, even more terrifying due in part to the fact that her wyvern was even larger than Beruka’s, eyes glinting red in the gloom and breaths leaving its mouth in puffs of vapor. It shifted beneath her, and the princess rested a comforting hand on its back, stilling it. She wore the same horned helmet as all the other malig knights, her hair soaked in the spots where it poked out of the rim.

_There’s no way they can win, _Silas thought to himself. _It’s just going to be a slaughter._

They were not alone, either. Prince Leo’s force, which had up until now been doing its own thing for the most part, had joined up with them for this assault. Silas hadn’t been invited to the war councils deciding all this, but for whatever reason they believed Camilla’s army wouldn’t be enough. The prince in question was standing up by the castle gates, surrounded at all sides by guards, yelling up to someone on the battlements – Silas couldn’t make out what he was saying over the drone of the rain.

He knew well enough what the offer was, at least. Supposedly, the resistance leader was hiding away here – Scarlet, herself a descendant of this family. Silas had never met her, but he’d heard her name passed around enough as a kid. A prodigy knight, skill as a wyvern-rider to rival Lady Pervenche herself. Somewhere down the line things had gone downhill, though, and she’d turned her back on her family, instead starting an underground anti-Nohr movement in protest to the occupation. Whether the entire family decided _now _of all times to back her due to valuing her as a member of their clan, estranged as she was, or whether they actually believed in her cause, or whether they _had _believed this entire time and were only behaving to appease Garon, Silas couldn’t tell… nor did it really matter, because the king’s children weren’t backing down now, not with a majority of their force standing at their gates.

He wasn’t sure who fired the first shot. It’d all happened so fast, and suddenly arrows were raining down from above and he was rushing to raise his shield over his head. Cries of anguish rose up all around him. _Bowmen? Where did they even come from? I didn’t see… before…_

Things spiraled from there. Camilla, Leo and the other appointed generals called out orders, Silas followed, trying not to get caught up in the chaos of it all. The flooding rivers made reaching the gate difficult, and scaling the walls wasn’t an option. The original plan had called for a wave of wyverns to overrun the battlements and open the gate, but the sudden appearance of the bowmen made that difficult.

Leo conjured a solution to that. Leading a group of sorcerers, suddenly there was an influx of faceless and golems rising from the left flank. The former threw themselves forward, taking arrows like pincushions and beating their bodies against the stone walls. The stoneborn were stationary, but slowly began pelting boulders through the air that slammed against the walls with promising _cracks. _There was shouting from the sorcerers, more flashes of magic – then they were pelting the boulders higher, taking out groups of two or three archers at a time from the battlements.

Silas and the rest of the infantry could only watch and wait. The few bow-knights they had were trying to fight back from beneath the cover of heavily-plated knights; troubadours and mages took to casting from behind the cover of the faceless, but their spells were less effective given the weather, and they kept having to duck to defend themselves from the relentless showers of arrows coming from above.

Then, all at once, Camilla’s wyvern leapt from the ground and took to the air. Beruka joined her a second later, startling Silas’s horse. He turned, looking into the distance across the rows upon rows of Nohrian ranks, seeing wyverns rise from the ground like a spooked flock of crows. Arrows caught a few; he saw one or two go down.

But the rest – there had to be fifty, at least, with more rising further back – took to the battlements amidst the chaos brought on by Leo’s forces, tearing apart the line of archers.

“MOVE!” came a voice, Silas wasn’t sure who – and he did, urging his mount forward.

The gate and the swelling rivers were still an issue, but not for long. One Faceless charged at the doors like a battering ram, slamming against them to no avail. Another joined, the impact so loud that Silas flinched. They roared, a terrible noise, and he could only be grateful he wasn’t on the other side.

Then a line of dark-knights filed to the front of their ranks, the ground glowing around them as they conjured up a spell. The two faceless kept up their assault on the doors. Silas was about to ask Selena what was going on when a near-blinding light exploded in front of him. Thick streams of fire shot out from before the dark knights, igniting the doors wall-to-wall and incinerating the Faceless standing in-between. Rather than melt, though, the creatures seemed to combust, going up in pinkish flames before exploding altogether, sending gore splattering across the mud and the surrounding stone walls.

Silas’s horse reared back, and it was all he could do to keep from getting flung off into the muck. Around him, other soldiers shouted in dismay – but when the smoke cleared, the doors were charred black and a sizable hole sat smack in the middle.

Prince Leo’s work was not done. He called for the vanguard to wait, making his way up to the doors – then, oddly, dismounted. He squatted down, set one hand into the charred mud beneath the castle walls… Then magic seemed to flow from his arm and into the earth.

It wasn’t until he heard shocked gasps around him that Silas spared a glance to his left – to find the rivers were receding altogether, the water sinking into the earth until the flow was a fraction of the size it had been before, all in the course of a few minutes.

After that, the assault truly began, and the battle turned from a siege to a slaughter.

Things blurred for Silas. Someone would appear before him, he would cut them down. Half of it was pure instinct, leaving him wondering what all the intricate lessons had been for if it all came down to instinct in the end. The rain was incessant, pounding on his armor, weighing his cape down and once his helmet was knocked off, sending his bangs into his eyes. He brought up a hand to slick them back and in doing so gave a mounted knight who’d approached in his blind spot an opening. He barely raised his sword in time to catch the lance before the point went in his throat and out his neck, but the force of the attack sent him flying from his horse, and he landed hard in the mud.

Winded, he watched the knight recover through blurry vision. His breaths picked up. His hand squeezed down around nothing, and, in a panic, he started to grope around for his sword in the dark. He only found mud. The knight turned on him, the horse looking monstrous from his place on the ground. His breath caught. _My sword. My sword. My sword. Where…_

_There, _he found it, daring to take his eyes away from the knight for a moment. It was at least three yards away. Could he make it? Grunting, he tried to pull himself upright, but something in his leg pinched and a surge of pain slowed his movements. The knight charged. For a moment the sound of rain disappeared and all he could hear was hooves furiously beating against mud and stone. His sword…

_Thunk._

Silas rolled to the side, crying out in pain as whatever had broken in his ankle pinched again. The horse stormed past; flecks of mud stirred up by its hooves smacked against his cheek.

But there was no lance. No follow-up attack, no coldness in his gut, no taste of blood in his mouth aside from what was already there. He peeked up.

The knight still sat in his saddle, but his sword-arm was drooping at his side and his lance had been dropped. Lighting flashed above, allowing Silas to spot an arrow protruding from his elbow, in the narrowest gap between two plates of steel.

_What… How…_

“Get up,” came someone’s tenor, and before he knew it he was being dragged to his feet by the arm. “Come on.”

Silas staggered on his feet, and turned to see Niles there. His hair was soaked through and stuck to his forehead, even with the hood of his cloak pulled. The one good eye he had was narrowed, angry.

“Niles,” he stuttered. “I- thank you.”

“There’s no time for bootlicking. _Move_.”

Move he did, but he was slow and he couldn’t take his eyes off the injured knight as they bellowed in rage and turned around for another go. Suddenly an axe was in their hand… did they have it stashed on their saddle somewhere? It was small, almost like a throwing axe… Silas’s eyes widened and he tried to warn Niles, but a cough came out instead.

The knight raised his arm, ready to throw. Then, like a lightningrod… a bolt of electricity flashed out of thin air, firing down the limb and sending the soldier into a fit of shakes. Silas could only gape. Another bolt followed before he’d even recovered from the first, and this time the man combusted all at once. His horse reared back, tossing him into the mud, where he rolled in an attempt to rid himself of the flames…

“HAH-HAHA! Remember my name well!” A voice called out through the rain, and Silas rose his gaze to the battlements where a sorcerer clad in bright saffron stood atop one of the stoneborn’s deposited boulders, striking a weird pose. “Odin Dark! Do not cross my path, lest the energies dormant in my tome hand unleash themselves upon you… Here beside the dark Prince Leo and his enigmatic bowman Niles, I, Odin, born of night and wrought of dusk, shall be your doom!”

“Ignore the theatrics. Come on, we don’t have all day,” Niles muttered, giving Silas’s arm another rough tug.

He followed the archer inside the keep. Silas didn’t remember the gates to that being opened, but it seemed like the main force had already swept through here; bodies were strewn across the floor, violet and blue banners alike stained with blood.

Niles deposited him in the shadows of a large statue, then knelt beside him. “Head in the clouds? Or did you really want my hands on you, that much?”

Silas furrowed his brow. “I’m not sure I understa- _ow!_ What the hell?”

“Twisted your ankle,” the archer diagnosed, without making eye contact. He kneaded the bad leg a little more, prompting another grunt from the knight.

“Would you stop manhandling my leg? It’s hurt!” He barked.

“I’m aware of that. Why do you think I pulled you in here? For a passionate loving surrounded by the bodies of our enemies? Come on.” Niles hoisted the bad foot up onto one knee, and this time Silas bit his lip instead of complaining. “This is gonna hurt for a minute, so get ready.”

He barely provided any time to do so before wrenching Silas’s ankle to the right. There was an audible _crack, _then a spike of pain that made him throw out a slew of curses.

“_Fuck!”_

“I don’t have any staves on me. Sorry.”

“Shit! Ahhg!”

“Would it kill you to be a little quieter?” Niles glanced over his shoulder, behind the cover of the statue. “You ride horses and whatever, don’t you? Shouldn’t you be used to this sort of thing? Jeez.”

“Ugh…” Silas sat up, cringing… but when he tried rotating the bad foot, there was significantly less pain in his ankle. “Thanks.”

The bowman eyed a nearby body for a little too long, then got up and rummaged through its belongings. When he returned, he was holding a stave. “There we go. Not very good at using these, just as a forewarning.”

The object let out a low light as it began healing Silas’s ankle. He forced himself to loosen some of the tension in his muscles, knowing the process would be faster if he wasn’t wound up. “Why are you wasting time on me? Shouldn’t you be protecting Prince Leo?”

Niles eyed him. “Careful…” Then he smirked, though it was weaker than his usual one, somehow. “Lord Leo has gone with Princess Camilla to pursue the duke of the castle… and supposedly, Scarlet, though I’d bet my ass she dipped the moment we showed up at the doorstep. Still, treason has to be punished, Nohrian law, blah blah… Odin and I are staying behind to help clean up the mess.”

Silas looked down. “…Oh.” He thought of the duke… he’d seen him a few times, a portly man not as fit for the battlefield as Lady Pervenche was, but his forte had always been politics. If the prince and princess had him cornered, then the battle was basically forfeit. _Then why are they still fighting back? Why, if they know they’ve lost?_

-*-

It was seven long hours later that the first glow of dawn emerged from the horizon, though it did little to brighten the scene.

Corpses, weapons, armor and blood were strewn across the castle grounds. What few moving bodies there were moved slowly and sluggishly – and they were all Nohrian, all with flashes of violet somewhere on their person. But their army was many fewer than it’d been the night before. It was a Chevois family they’d been assaulting, after all, not just some ragtag rebellion. Generations of knights, generations worth of skill and knowledge in combat.

But they’d won.

From atop the battlements, it was a great big, pathetic mess to behold. All of that, just for the rebellion leader to escape? _What a pain in the ass!_ They’d captured the duke at least, put him in chains, but it wasn’t him they’d been after in the first place. _He _wasn’t the reason they were still stuck running circles around this country, it was that woman, _she _was the one that kept pulling the rebellion back onto its feet each time they dealt a blow to it.

The sudden light did not go unnoticed to the two Nohrian border guards resting atop a turret, and one of them turned, gazing in bewilderment across the Chevois landscape.

“Yikes, is that the fucking _sun?”_

The other joined her, shambling over to the edge of the rounded walkway. “Finally…”

Charlotte’s form was more red than anything else now, and the taste of iron would not leave her mouth. Her hair clung to her neck and shoulders, frizzy and tangled from sweat and rain and wind. She rested both her arms atop the pommel of her axe as she leaned her weight on it, watching the meager sunrise before her. Gray circles hung beneath her eyes.

Benny shared the same feature, though his eyes were fluttering shut now and then, like he’d soon fall asleep standing up… which probably would be possible in the bulky suit of armor he wore. “Should we… find… the captain?”

Charlotte side-eyed him. “No good, I saw him go down. On the bright side, though, I wasn’t a fan of that guy anyway… so we’ll get a new assignment. Or maybe they’ll even promote us!”

An odd quiet had hung over the castle since the fighting had ended, occasionally accented by a cry of pain as someone’s wounds were dressed or a dying groan as someone passed. In the silence that followed Charlotte’s statement, they heard one of the latter, followed by the distant _caw _of a crow.

“…Maybe,” came Benny’s response, as uninspired as ever.

Charlotte sighed, the brief hope that the sunrise had brought her fading back into the droll of _work. _She straightened, and heaved her axe over her shoulder, beckoning her partner over. “C’mon, in any case, we’ve gotta go find _someone _to report to. Don’t want them reporting us dead. I expect _full _pay for this shitty fight… I’ll be counting every piece of gold.”

Together, they made their way through the labyrinth of debris, corpses, and abandoned horses that littered the castle yards. One of the stables was still on fire, but there was little either of them could do to address that, so they kept on walking until they reached the keep.

Inside, the scene was much the same. Debris and carnage littered the once-pristine floors. Banners were torn down, braziers knocked to the ground, too many bodies to count. Melancholy brushed Charlotte for a brief moment, but jaded as she was it soon passed, and she carried on through the mess, searching for someone alive.

On the second floor they found what remained of their division, crowded into a large hall. The lieutenant, who Charlotte assumed was now in charge of Benny and herself, nodded his head at them as they entered before returning to the heated discussion at hand. A number of shackled knights knelt on the floor near the far wall, eyes glued to the floor. Prisoners. They were discussing what to do with the prisoners.

Charlotte rolled her eyes at the debacle. _Just do what we did with the rest of the prisoners over the last nine some months we’ve been here,_ she thought, _or are we down a headsman?_

Disinterested, she made her way to one of the far corners, where a window overlooked the escalating sunrise. With no regard to the conversation occurring behind her, she reached up and cranked it open, relishing in the fresh air pouring through.

A little ways further from the table where the proceeds were happening was a door, partially cracked, and Benny somehow made his way over there while Charlotte was getting her breather. He soon peeked back around the frame, though, and the concerned look on his face prompted her to drag herself away from the glass and follow him into the room.

It was a bathroom from the looks, and had missed most of the bloodshed from the battle… except for a few stains near the door, leading up to a pair of soiled boots… her eyes trailed up to the person wearing them, finding it was a boy, hunched over and shivering over a basin as if he’d been vomiting.

Her face instinctively screwed up, and she glared at Benny – _why’d you barge in here? And why’d you call ME over?_

He glanced back apologetically, as if saying, _Sorry. I dunno. I felt bad._

Sighing, Charlotte took matters into her own hands and knelt down. “Hey, you alright, man?” She didn’t even bother with her butter them up charade – he was clearly way too traumatized right now to see any appeal in that.

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t respond to her question. When she reached a hand out, though, and patted the plate of his shoulderguard, he nearly jumped out of his skin.

“What-“

“Woah,” Charlotte barked, raising her hands up. “Relax, the battle’s over.”

He blinked, once, then twice again, looking between her and Benny. His eyes were watering up. _What the hell happened? Is this his first battle?_

“Something happened,” Benny said, _no _shit, Charlotte thought in response. “We should get him to a healer.”

That, she could agree with. Squatting a little higher, she held a hand out to him. “C’mon, let’s get you patched up. Can you stand?”

He stared at her for a minute, pale as a ghost. Then, “They were my friends. I… I knew some of them.”

A look passed between her and Benny again. “Pardon?”

“This family…” His voice shook. “I recognized some of them. I- I…” Gray eyes fell to the floor again, almost in shame. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t-…”

_…Ugh. How miserable, _Charlotte thought with a frown. “Benny, watch him for a minute, alright? I’m gonna grab a healer.”

The big knight nodded tentatively at her, crossing his arms. “Right.”

_I’m gonna need more than a raise for this one, Nohr._

-*-

Far from this estate, along the eastern outskirts of the city, another battle was occurring – or, less a battle and more a chase. A small group of Nohrian elites had managed to track the rebellion leader amidst all the chaos and pursue her past the last set of the city’s walls and into the woods.

Scarlet sat atop her wyvern, clinging to the harness and ducking low as it weaved between trees and through patches of sunlight. _Got to go faster, _she thought, desperate, sweat clinging to her skin beneath her armor despite the chill in the air whipping around her. _Need to escape. Need to regroup._

Behind her, though, the sounds of pursuit did not cease. She gulped, drew her wyvern closer to the ground. Up wasn’t an option; there were more wyverns above, malig knights that’d already hit her twice with lightning spells. _Just a little further, _Scarlet thought, biting down hard on her lip. There was an abandoned fort not far outside the city; beneath it was a trapdoor that led to one of her league’s underground safehouses. If she could just make it there, she would elude the Nohrians and they could regroup… even if it seemed desperate, at this point, with their biggest ally in the fight having likely been decimated before the sun rose that morning.

_I can’t lead them back there, though, _part of her thought as she barely managed to guide her wyvern around another tree. More shouts emerged from the woods behind her, and she cursed under her breath, reaching for her belt where her last throwing axe rested. _But I don’t have a choice, damn it…! I just have to throw them off long enough to escape… _She glanced down… _Maybe… if I send her, will they follow? _

But she couldn’t part with her wyvern. Not when they’d been through so much together. If they faced death, they would together.

Scarlet pushed forward. The trees began to thin. Above, black shapes cut through the sky, just out of the corner of her eyes. Wyverns. _Damn it. Damn it!_ _What do I do…?_

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. And up until now, it hadn’t – she was never on her own, she _always _had a squad with her. But the circumstances this time had been dire, and the Nohrians somehow had finally managed to outsmart her… or they’d tortured her location out of one of their prisoners. Stupid, it was all stupid. She should have thought ahead…

The fort was in the distance now, a pile of rubble on the horizon. Before it was around a mile of empty plains, however. _No cover. Can I make it? And even if I do, they’ll have me before I get there._

Yelling in frustration, Scarlet pulled the tomahawk from her belt and looked up.

There were five wyverns in total, way too many for her to face alone, but the formation they flew in… She knew it well enough. If she could clip the wing of the one in the front, the other two riders behind it might be in trouble. But that wouldn’t be enough. She needed something more.

She rummaged through one of the bags on the saddle, gears in her mind spinning and spinning. _Chain. Chain. Where’s the damn Chain? _They’d been using it to set precautionary traps around some of their hideouts, as well as securing doors, tying up prisoners, whatever else – she still had a good length of it left. Straining the muscles in her arms, she heaved it out, then rushed to fasten it to the hilt of the tomahawk. Somewhere close to the other end, she tied on her own two-handed axe. _This has to work. It’s all I’ve got._

The woods cleared, and Scarlet heaved up on the reins so her wyvern was flying nearly perpendicular to the ground. The malig knights pursuing her started to adjust their formation to face the sudden onslaught, but not fast enough. Scarlet zipped past them, lifting the makeshift weapon. Once she was a good distance above, she had her wyvern spin upside down, and used the momentum from the twist to throw the tomahawk from her arms with another desperate yell, her legs aching in strain as they did everything they could to keep her on the saddle.

The weapon simply wobbled and wriggled in mid-air for a few moments, and the only sounds seemed to be the rush of breath and blood in Scarlet’s lungs and ears along with the jingling of the death-trap that had left her arms.

But she was no amateur.

A satisfying _thunk _was heard as the tomahawk landed in the lead wyvern’s left wing, sending it twisting into a downward spiral. The chain lashed out with the movement, sending the bigger battleaxe in an upward arc. The blade of it caught the wing of one on the left, then on its next swing looped around the neck of the one on the right, tying the front two beasts together. And together they flailed in midair, the group in disarray, the remaining two struggled to retain command of their mounts in the chaos. As her wyvern flipped back around, she heard more shouting. One of them had rushed to help her comrades; the last rider was now pursuing Scarlet, lance glinting in the light.

The knight looked to her waist, devoid of weapons. A scowl came over her face. _One more. We can do this. _

Sucking in a breath, she drew the reins up again. Her wyvern swung around, pumping its wings until it changed direction. Then they charged at their adversary head-on, gravity at their backs.

The Nohrian barely had time to prepare before Scarlet’s wyvern crashed into it, and the two beasts became entangled, roaring and hissing as they tumbled from the air in a freefall. Gritting her teeth, Scarlet reached forward, nearly coming off her saddle, and grabbed hold of the enemy rider’s spear before he could collect himself. Cold air rushed around them. He put up a fight, but not much of one, not enough to keep Scarlet from yanking the lance from his grip. She wasted no time, spinning the weapon around and planting the pointy end in the gap between his helmet and breastplate, right near his throat.

Her wyvern began to disengage following her command, but the ground was a lot closer than she’d expected. Tossing the lance aside, she grabbed the reins and pulled up. With a great roar, her mount pushed away from the enemy wyvern, heaved its wings, and leveled out close enough to the ground that the highest blades of grass brushed against its belly.

For a minute they coasted, Scarlet catching her breath and her wyvern regaining its balance. Then they focused their attention ahead of them; the fort was in their sights again, and hope leapt into the rider’s throat. Grasping the reins, she urged her wyvern across the last mile, slowing on their approach and finally landing amidst the rubble.

She wasted no time, scurrying between a destroyed doorframe and over mounds of collapsed stone. Her wyvern took right off again, headed for a nearby roost; the entrance wasn’t big enough to accommodate beasts of that size.

Said entrance was near the center of the fort’s foundation; Scarlet kicked some rubble out of the way to reveal a trapdoor, then slipped beneath it, quiet as a shadow despite the battle she’d just fought. Beneath it, the cellar was dark, reeking of wine, mildew, and stone. She knew the path by heart, though, and paid the choking darkness no mind as she navigated the cellar to the far wall.

She was about to activate the true entrance to the hideout when she stopped, froze. _The cavaliers, _she realized, heart beginning to pound. _I forgot about the cavaliers. They were chasing me on land. I didn’t see them when I turned around and headed back for the fort. Where did the cavaliers go?_

_No…_

“Lady Charlotte of Cheve,” the voice was close, too close, the Nohrian accent like chalk on a blackboard. “By decree of Garon, King of Nohr and the Dukedom of Cheve, I sentence you to death.”

_No_! She thought, furious. _Not like this! Not like this!_

Suddenly, all at once, there was light. Six lanterns came to life around her, illuminating the armored forms of eight Nohrians. Two mages, one of which had cast the pyromancy spell to light the lanterns, along with two bow-knights and four cavaliers. Their weapons were brandished.

Scarlet took an anguished breath. _I can’t. Not like this. This isn’t how I was meant to go, god damnit! _She reached for the weapons at her belt, then stopped when the movement prompted the entire group of assailants to take a step closer. A lance poked eagerly at her chin. _Fuck! God damnit! I will not fall here!_

Defiant, she glared up at them. They didn’t even spare her that; all their eyes were shrouded by helmets and visors. They only provided her with disapproving frowns. Contempt. She wanted to die on the battlefield, going out in a blaze of glory for all her countrymen to see. _I can’t… _Despair began to sink in. _I can’t…_

Then, as soon as the Nohrians had seemed to manifest, something else did. Something behind them, lurking in each of their shadows. Her gaze must have betrayed her, or maybe it was her expression, the slight widening of her eyes, because one of the mages turned, raised her voice in alarm – only for an arm to reach out from the shadows and slice her throat open.

Like dominoes, they began to fall. Another shadow slit another Nohrian’s throat, then two more, until only half their original numbers remained. The two closest to Scarlet, who’d been waving their lances in her face, were mere corpses, now, weapons falling to the ground in a noisy clatter as they landed in puddles of their own blood. The furthest four rushed forward; one moved to bring his halberd down on Scarlet and she could not react, not when she was still paralyzed by shock at what the hell was going on. She stared down the blade as it descended on her like a guillotine.

Then there was a flash; and something huge stood between her and the Nohrian. A white glow filled the chamber. Her eyes pinched shut involuntarily; she heard the crackle of magic followed by a blade hitting the ground. Peeking out again, she watched as the figure in front of her ran what she could only describe was a magic sword through the Nohrian, clean through, depositing his corpse to the left. He wasn’t done there, though; in one swift movement he readied another strike, weapon flashing at the other three assailants. It was no style of swordfighting she was familiar with, but damn if it wasn’t effective. He danced between their strikes, took one’s arm, slashed another through the chest… and didn’t even have to _touch _the third, a blast of lightning-magic burst from the sword all of a sudden, instantly combusting the Nohrian.

It was over as soon as it had started. Where the eight Nohrians had a moment ago been standing now stood five oddly-garbed warriors that were definitely none of hers. She tried to catch her breath. Part of her thought to continue into the hideout, another part of her that hadn’t exactly caught up with what just happened thought _no, you can’t, no one can find out this is a safehouse, get them off your tail and then circle around…_

The biggest one approached her then, the one with the sword. He sheathed it; her eyes followed the movement closely. It was paper thin, a twig compared to most Nohrian and Chevois blades. _It looks almost Hoshidan, _she thought, and then it hit her.

The figure dropped to one knee, then raised his arms to remove his helmet. In the light of few lanterns remaining, and the one burning body on the other end of the room, the Hoshidan looked up at her. His hair spilled from the helm, long and brown, slick with sweat in some spots. Strands of it stuck to his face. His eyes glinted in the low light, as alive as the weapon he’d wielded had been. She knew he was certainly Hoshidan, but if that was the case, it could only mean he was… they were…

“Forgive my tardiness, Lady Scarlet,” he began, speaking quickly. “…And, for better or worse, our entrance. I am afraid decorum will need to wait. There are more Nohrians pursuing you. The window of time we have is small, and narrowing by the second.” He bowed his head again, lower. “My name is Ryoma. I am the high prince of Hoshido. My apologies if I do not have more to prove my identity to you, but until we have the time to elaborate on such matters, I ask for your trust. Please, come with us.”

Scarlet’s composure finally began to sink back in, at his words, and her face hardened. _The Hoshidans. The Hoshidans. The Hoshidans have come._ “My wyvern – did she lead you here?”

Ryoma stood, pulling his helmet back over his head. “She did; we were staked out in the nearby forest, and began to move once our scouts reported movement outside the capital. Come.”

Scarlet took his command, briefly observing the ninja around them as they filed out of the cellar. “The hideout…” she muttered, glancing back over her shoulder.

“I regret to inform you that it was compromised overnight,” Ryoma told her, tone grave. “We cleared it out for you, figuring you would be coming here after the battle in the city.”

She gritted her teeth thinking about it. “…Do you think there were any survivors?”

They climbed out of the trapdoor and back into the day. Suddenly Scarlet felt exposed. _The safehouse was gone all along. Was I about to walk into a trap? _Her fists clenched at her sides. _How could they best us like this?_ _If the Hoshidans hadn’t come… _

Ryoma turned around, gazing down at her from beneath the visor with a grim frown etched into his features. “I’ll be honest with you… I do not. If there were any prisoners… Well. You are the expert here, when it comes to Nohrians, Lady Scarlet.”

She sighed. “Yeah. If there were any prisoners, they’d be heads on pikes right now.”

Ryoma brought with him a small number of Pegusi and Kinshi; she had never seen either beast before, but hardly had the time to marvel at them. Quickly, she mounted her wyvern and followed them into the skies as they flew east.

_East. _It occurred to her when they were airborne that she did not know where he was leading her. _But what choice do I have now? Shit… _She searched herself for rage, righteous fury, anything that could give her drive, but instead she only found despair. _In this state, the rebellion isn’t going to last a single day. Our information networks are broken. Our greatest ally just got stomped. Fuck… I let them down. I let them down. Damn it. Damn it._

She was quiet for a long time, until the Hoshidans descended towards a lake. On the eastern border of it was a high ridge; it was at the foot of the ridge that they set up their camp. She recognized the region – it was near the border of Cheve, most of the territory beyond was wolfskin land.

By the time they had dismounted, night had fallen once more and a chill set in. Scarlet sat against her wyvern, curling her knees up. She had never once felt so powerless. Even before she’d built up the Chevois rebellion and made all her allies – even then she’d had the promise that she _could _one day build up enough strength to take on the Nohrian occupation. Now though… even with the Hoshidans here, there wasn’t a prayer of her ever getting another shot at things again.

Failure. It was failure. She’d failed before, countless times – made a fool out of herself, fallen on her ass, eaten shit in the training yard – but nothing like this, nothing of this degree. And how much blood was on her hands? She’d always suppressed the thought, knowing it wasn’t good for her cause and that people had to put their lives on the line to fight for what they believed in… but when that cause failed, what then? _Years of preparation and promises and fighting… _

One of Ryoma’s retainers approached her at one point, a ninja with a cold air to her. She tried to encourage Scarlet to join their entourage and eat something, but she politely refused, and a growl from her wyvern sent the ninja off. The prince himself approached, later, though he made his visit brief, knowing they both were in need of rest. He told her they could have a proper meeting in the morning, that what was important was that she was, for the time being, safe; that she should do her best to clear her mind and confront what she was feeling after she had rested; and, finally, that he and his entourage were planning on doing what they had come halfway across the world to do – extract her from Cheve and provide her refuge in Hoshido, in exchange for knowledge critical to defeating Nohr.

He left, after, leaving the chill in the air. Scarlet curled up closer to her wyvern, hating that this was how they were meeting, when she was at her weakest point. She hated that for all the years she’d spent outsmarting Nohr and evading them, defeat could come crashing down so easily. Part of her hated that this was all Hoshido could do – pluck her out of the conflict while her friends and people that believed in her died or went on the run. She felt a fool and a coward; a fool for underestimating Nohr after _everything_, a coward for running instead of dying with the others in battle. _It’s what has to be done, _she told herself, as she remembered so many others telling her when they initially proposed the plan to her. _It’s how our fight can go on. Someday, Garon will get what’s coming to him._

She did not sleep that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i'd attempt to explain the huge delay on this chapter, but apart from the worn-out explanation of "life stuff happened, work takes up a huge chunk of my time daily and other interests have been distracting me" - i was planning on!!! putting off posting this until i had the following chapter completed!! because this chapter isn't really focused on any of our main characters nor does it necessarily advance the plot, where the next one does, so i was planning on rolling out both at once and thus even when this chapter was nearly finished I kept pushing back posting it until I worked on the next one, and ultimately i ended up losing a couple thousand words on it after good ol' MS Word crashed without telling me, at which point i was like "whatevs, it's march already, i'm just going to post this one"
> 
> anyways - not to sound discouraged - i'll tackle the next one (corrin + xander chapter) in good time, irks me like hell when i let too much go by between updates!
> 
> thanks for reading guys, and for being understanding about this!! :)


	4. one foot in front of the other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the prince and the dragon take the first steps on their journey to hoshido, battered and bruised emotionally, but together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you're all staying safe through all this stuff happening! I really wanted to get this out sooner because I know people def need an escape from everything right now, but Motivation Machine Broke, work busy, etc etc... but on the other hand there are Two Chapters being posted tonight (this one is kind of short and exposition for corrin & xander's story to come - the next is about twice as long and Quite Heavy)  
thanks so much for all the patience! if you're reading this rn, i really appreciate it!! 🙇🙇🙇

Princess Corrin was somewhere between consciousness and slumber when the distant sound of hooves reached her ears, and immediately, she stirred. Her long legs shifted beneath her, claws grasping in the hay as she brought herself to an upright position. Where she’d always tried to avoid taking on her dragon form as much as possible, since that day she had almost preferred it. She couldn’t pin down why, and was too tangled up with grief to care. All she knew was that it helped. It helped that the prince and his allies couldn’t read her expressions or tell if she was crying. It helped that her appearance was all the more intimidating to others, because the last thing she wanted to do was interact with them. _Any _of them. And where her other form had always made her feel hopeful before – like there was some prayer of her recovering her life in Hoshido, of regaining normalcy – with word of her mother’s death, that hope had been quashed… so what was even the point of trying? Part of her had wanted to give up completely, for a while – tell the prince he could stop trying so hard, tell him she would behave and follow his and his father’s commands, at least until she got a chance to let herself get overwhelmed on the battlefield and could be put out of her misery. All the kindness Laslow, Peri, and even Xander had shown her felt hollow. Because of Azura – Azura, her first real friend, her _only _friend, the person she looked up to most… because Azura had…

She shook her head, burying the thoughts as deeply within her as she could. There wasn’t any point to mulling over it anymore, and that was the end of it.

Lilith was already at the entrance of the stables as Corrin lumbered over, gazing out over yonder. Lilith, the last person she could trust, but even now she was having doubts about that...

A lone rider was approaching, their horse's hooves beating against the ground. Corrin ducked further back into the shadows, her massive frame threatening to glint in the silvery glow. Behind her, her tail lashed back and forth. _Scent. I recognize the scent. The prince. And he’s without his retainers. _It was unusual for him.

Lilith took the initiative when he arrived, moving to greet him coldly. “Lady Corrin is in as much of a mood to talk as the last time you tried... What is it?”

As he brought his mount to a halt, his gaze moved past Lilith, to the large shadow looming in the stable threshold beyond her. The moonlight cast pale highlights across his figure. Corrin watched in cool contempt.

“…I’ll speak with her,” he told Lilith. “It’s… about Azura.” _Is that pity in his voice?_

The fins on the astral dragon’s spine seemed to flex in agitation. “What makes you think she-“

“Princess Corrin,” the prince’s attention moved back to her, “a word… if you may.”

Lilith, more in tune with the princess’s feelings than anyone else, spoke for her. “You’re not-“

Xander boldly ignored her, urging his horse a bit closer to the entryway of the stables – forcing Lilith to shift to the side. Somberly, he asked again, “Please... I’m not here to give you more empty apologies or convey orders from my father.” His eyes flicked down. “This is about Azura.”

The word stung. It stung, but Corrin, despite herself, shambled out of the building and into the moonlight. It felt like it’d been ages since they’d spoken; she’d hardly said more than a word to him since the day they received the news, and after failing to receive any kind of response from her the few times he tried to explain things afterwards, he stopped trying altogether, and only conveyed messages through his retainers or Lilith.

She stood before him as he dismounted and, somehow, had the gall to hand his horse’s reins to Lilith. Begrudgingly, she led the beast into the stables, leaving the two.

For all his power, physically and figuratively, Corrin forgot how small he was compared to her, at least like this. How weak he looked. Sure, his sword still rested at his hip – but he was so short, now. Her tail slid across the dirt, landing to his right. It alone could have swept his feet out from under him… and she had a vague feeling it had before, plenty of times, back when she wasn’t herself. He didn’t start, though, barely batted an eye at the movement. She watched in distant interest. _Not afraid, not at all, _she thought. _There was definitely a time that he was… but at some point he got over it. Not like Laslow. _His retainer’s discomfort had always been obvious… it felt like so long since she’d talked to him or laughed at something he said. She almost missed his companionship… almost…

Her thoughts went back to her mother, and grief pressed into the walls of her heart like a dagger.

“What is it,” she asked, intending the words to come out coldly, but instead they just sounded frail and full of despair.

Prince Xander spoke clearly. “I am going to get right to the point. My sister was not aware of the plot to assassinate your mother. My father sent her there armed with a weapon without even telling her what it was, because he knew she would be able to get close enough to the queen to do harm. The weapon was supposedly… it was meant to kill them both.”

_…_

Corrin locked up, her bones turning to ice within her. “…What?”

He sighed. “I understand your skepticism. But I am asking for your trust, on this matter alone.”

Rage suddenly filled her. “My trust… And if you feed me some lie to mend our relationship, that would be awfully convenient for _you_, wouldn’t it?”

He glared up at her. “I would _never _lie about something like this. Do you think _I _wanted my little sister to murder the mother of someone she obviously cares deeply about, and potentially lose her own life in the process? Do you think _I _liked this outcome any more than you did? How does this benefit me?”

It was odd to see him get so emotional so suddenly, and Corrin was almost taken aback – almost. The bitter, cold girl that had grown in her since receiving the news still had more to say, though. “I would think so. You’re King Garon’s son. In the end, his goals are yours and the means are just details. I was the only exception. You got your war… how could this _really, truly _be that bad for you?”

His hands curled into fists at his side, and emotion swam through his eyes. “I…” He took a breath. “I saw at least a dozen of my half-siblings killed before I was even ten years old, sometimes by each other. I can remember their _faces. _I… I’ve _seen _them in more nightmares than I can count, Princess. I can remember the pain I felt after I lost my mother like it was yesterday. And if I’ve learned anything about you in the time I have known you, it’s that you look up to Azura like no one else in this world. _Why _would I tell you anything but the truth on this matter?” _Do you really think so lowly of me, _those words hung unsaid in the air.

It was raw, and the side of her she had buried away in the past few weeks stirred. _If he’s telling the truth, then Azura… If she really had no part in it… then…_

Silence drew out between them, as it often did. He seemed to collect himself. “…My apologies for losing my composure. All I wish to do is convey what I learned in meeting with my father to you. I thought it would be of some significance, considering the… connection you and my sister have.”

Corrin looked at him. He truly seemed earnest about it, and part of her wanted so badly to believe him right then. It even wanted to apologize for lashing out. But she couldn’t commit fully. No matter how hard she tried, it seemed there would always be something blocking that trust from reciprocating completely.

After a moment more, he reached for his horse’s reins, but halfway through the motion stopped and faced Corrin again. “Listen, Princess. I have said this before, forgive me for saying it again – but you still have a family waiting for you in Hoshido… even if your mother is gone. There is still reason for you to return, and if things progress as planned, we should be taking our first steps toward your homeland soon.”

Then, surprising her, he held out a hand.

“I know you are grieving. But do I still have your cooperation?”

She reared her head back in a moment, mind whirring. _…He’s right, _she thought, begrudgingly. _And he’s not asking me to stop grieving or to forgive him, just to commit to the plan…_

_The least I can do is that._

He must have been expecting her to shift back, then, because his hand was held low. Instead Corrin lifted one massive claw and extended it, talons wrapping around the prince’s forearm. If he was taken aback, he hid it well. She didn’t smell the same fear on him that always seemed to emanate from his retainer, nor did he flinch.

He departed after that, and Corrin lumbered back into the stable, thoughts clouded.

-*-

In three day’s time, they marched.

Xander worked hard to expedite things, barely getting any sleep the nights in-between. He was determined again, determined to get back on the road, away from his father and Iago (even if they would be following behind them soon enough), determined to regain the sense of normalcy that’d somehow sprouted in his travels with the princess before everything had gone to shit.

He wanted to change; he wanted to move out of the slump he was in. What prompted it, he couldn’t pinpoint. Maybe it was the fact that for once the end felt in sight, or maybe it was how hard a blow the death of the queen had dealt to Corrin – and him, too, apparently, because in the following weeks he’d been damn near haunted by long-repressed memories of his mother’s last days. Growing in him was a desire to break out of the cycle of hopelessness he’d been trapped in ever since his days in the fortress. He didn’t fear his father as he did anymore; if anything, the brief time they’d spent at Krakenburg in the past week had served as some reassurance in that the king had not the slightest idea what his son was up to, or that Corrin’s mind had been liberated.

He made a conscious decision to treat the princess as she ought to be treated – as a royal and as an ally. Up until now he had treated her coldly and kept distance, limiting interaction, only telling her what information was absolutely necessary. But maybe, he began to realize, maybe now that she had regained her footing in the world somewhat, he could bother himself to look on her as an equal.

Even if, presently, that was not exactly their relationship.

He had yet to see her leave her draconic form since they left Krakenburg. Even the night he had told her of the truth behind her mother’s death, where he’d expected her to shift back upon learning Azura wasn’t at fault, she had not. It just barely concerned him, because from what he knew the form disgusted her, was difficult to maintain, and caused her intense dysmorphia. If this was some way to try and offset her grief, it couldn’t be healthy. Lilith, as usual, told him nothing about her state of mind; Nyx dropped a hint here and there of what was going through her mistress’s head, but for the most part the sorceress spoke intentionally vague and did not cave when pressed for more information on Corrin’s condition.

_Time, _he thought to himself from atop his horse, at the head of a concession of some eighty-strong group of Nohrian soldiers._ In time, she will come around. _It did not occur to him at that point in time that he was worried about her state of mind not for the sake of their mission’s integrity or his own safety, but out of concern for her health alone.

Unfortunately, when it came to their relationship, that time didn’t seem to be at any point in the foreseeable future. In the first week of their march they did not interact once; in the second week she finally shifted back, though it irked him that with so many Nohrian soldiers now traveling with them she did not communicate with him first. Laslow was on top of things, though, providing her a new disguise – one of the same bulkier vests all Nohrian mercenaries wore to cover her armor beneath, and the pointed helmet of a footsoldier to hide the intense red of her eyes and tips of her ears. It was actually passable enough that Xander himself did not recognize the princess when he first caught sight of her in the distance, instead mistaking the woman Laslow was talking with by the weapons tent as a low-rank recruit in the party that his retainer had _no _business wasting time flirting with, and rode up to them;

“Laslow! Need I remind you that it is unbecoming of royal retainers to philander with those within your rank?” he’d called as his horse trotted up to the duo, voice sharp in the foggy morning air. “If you really must indulge, save it for the taverns in the next town.”

His retainer turned to Xander with a rather tired look on his face. “Milord,” he called with a slanted smile and a curt bow. “I’ll take you up on that offer… However you misinterpret the conversation.”

With that he flicked his chin towards the woman, who seemed to reluctantly lift her head to meet the prince’s gaze.

“Princess,” the word slipped out, though hushed, and he glanced around at the nearby tents to make sure nobody else was in earshot. “I… wasn’t aware you were out.”

She glanced to Laslow, then nodded, her mouth a thin line. “…I hope it isn’t a problem.”

The passive response took him off guard. “…Of course not,” he began, scanning their surroundings again. “It’s no different from how we traveled before, given there are many more eyes around to watch for now. I trust that this will be no challenge for you.” He gestured to Laslow, then added, “…With his assistance, too, of course.”

His retainer smiled gingerly at this, and Xander couldn’t help but dwell on it for a moment. He had a different air about him, and wondered if they’d need to sit down and talk directly about the whole thing again – had his feelings changed since their stop in Krakenburg? Had he some new reason for apprehension? The thought nagged at the prince, distracting him until Corrin replied.

“…Thanks. I… I want to move forward again.” Her brow furrowed beneath her long bangs.

The words were refreshing to hear, and were borderline miraculous given how reclusive she had been throughout the past month and a half. He didn’t want to press, didn’t want to rush things, but maybe…

His horse shifted beneath him as he hesitantly responded, “…If you need to talk, know that I’ll be willing to listen-” Voices came off to the left then, around a misty alleyway just beside the weapons tent they were standing before. Laslow quickly moved to dispatch the oncoming soldiers and send them on their way, ensuring the two’s privacy. He disappeared behind the tent, and Xander regained his train of thought. “…Even if I may not be… the most ideal candidate.” He grimaced at the poor phrasing. “I’ll try not to be as abrasive as before, princess. Your counsel as a royal is important to me, regardless of your place of origin.” He stopped himself there, before any more incoherent, guilt-leaden blather could spill from his lips.

The princess only gave an apprehensive nod, clearly disinterested in confiding even as something as insignificant as her musings on the weather to him. _Time, _he cursed himself, _she needs more time to come around. Be merciful and leave her be, Xander, by the gods._

“Ah, Prince Xander!” called out a voice from behind him, and, alarmed, Xander turned in his saddle to glare over his shoulder. Laslow was still behind the corner, shooing off the other party.

Luckily, it was only his sister’s retainer – a tall, broad, and unfortunate man by the name of Arthur. He romped up to the prince, a broad smile on his face, and miraculously did not slip on the many patches of slick mud that coated the plain they’d set up camp in. He raised an arm in greeting, gaze momentarily flicking to the footsoldier standing behind Xander, finding nothing of further interest there, and returning to the prince.

“Princess Elise is looking for you,” he reported. “Erm, along with two lieutenants that seemed a tad bit miffed that you chose not to join them for their meeting, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

Xander scoffed, quietly, taking one more glance over his shoulder – only to find that the princess had already wandered off. “Tell my sister I will meet her at the main tent.”

“Righto, my lord! Oh, and, erm…” Arthur scratched the back of his head. “A minor panic _might_ have broken out along the eastern perimeter. It seems, erm… the dragon has gone missing.”

He could have laughed at that, but only smirked as he responded, “There’s no need for concern. It’s common knowledge that my father has an astral drake kept in our ranks. Tell the others that the dragon is well-hidden within its plane, and may be until we reach our next skirmish.” The lie left him easier than he expected.

“Ah! Of course,” Arthur replied, confusion written all over his face. “Astral plane, right. Will do.” The man scurried off then, mystified.

Xander sighed. He would have some explaining to do.

-*-

The decision hadn’t come easy.

_None _of this had come easy.

But by now she had submitted to the fact that maybe nothing in her future would ever be easy, that it’d always be an uphill battle whenever she got knocked off her feet. Talking to Nyx and Lilith had been more helpful than anything; Nyx in particular, as Lilith usually had little to offer but a hug or a look of sympathy. Corrin was grateful nonetheless.

At some point she had run out of tears to shed, and her mind had exhausted the circle of grief it’d been cycling around and around since the day it had happened. The clouds in her head cleared. Sorrow seeped into the ground and something else sprouted from it – resolve of some kind, and in talking with Nyx she soon figured out how to identify it. It wasn’t just resolve to get back to what remained of her family – it was resolve to avenge her mother’s death, and her father’s death, and her own stolen childhood.

Corrin wasn’t used to such strong feelings of vengeance; at first she rejected them, fearful that this was a sign that the primal anger she was once vulnerable to was returning, but Nyx had convinced her otherwise.

“Vengeance and justice,” she had said, sitting across from Corrin within the humble tent provided to her by the prince. “Those are natural emotions. You aren’t irrational for feeling them. If anything, it would be more concerning if you did not feel that way. It would mean King Garon has already won.”

“What do you mean..?” Corrin had asked, lost.

Nyx had looked her dead in the eyes. “I can’t easily explain it to you, Princess. But submission. Believing there is no way out but to give in, and comply. Not wanting your captors to face justice. It can cause a sickness of a sort. You wanting that vengeance is a sign that they did not break you.”

The princess stared down at her hands, clenching and unclenching them. It was the first time she had shifted back in months. Nyx always pitched her tent far from the main encampment, so there was no danger to doing so. After so much time, her smaller body felt strange and surreal. “I always thought… the destructive urges were… bad.”

“It’s not destruction you seek, though, is it?” The mage asked, tilting her head. “It’s justice. In my opinion, you have every right to that.”

_Is it? _Corrin had her doubts about that… but she kept them to herself. “…That’s true.”

Nyx rose, smoothing out her robes. “Then I say you should use it, child. Harden your resolve and keep your goal in your sights. I would have been lost a long time ago if I didn’t have my own goal driving me forward… even if I lost sight of it more than once.”

Corrin rose, too, her legs wobbling awkwardly beneath her. “…Thank you. I’ll meditate on that.”

Meditate on it she had; and in the end she found herself dressed in Nohrian clothes again, being led around the encampment by Laslow beneath a heavy cloud of morning fog. She couldn’t deny, however unrelenting the grief about her mother was, how good it felt to view the word from these eyes again, to talk and _use _her voice, to feel the wind brush her hair and listen to Laslow babble about this or that.

It hurt to grieve, but it hurt more to be alone.

“We’ll need to come up with a name for you,” Laslow was saying, holding his hands up in the air. “We can’t have Lord Xander going around shouting ‘princess this, princess that’ all the time, with this many people nearby.”

Corrin gave an absent hum, watching the mercenary walk and realizing how much she _missed _this.

“It needs to be something totally inconspicuous, you know? And if you’re looking for someone who knows Nohrian lady given names – well, you’ve come to the right guy.”

Corrin hummed again.

“Wha- are you even listening?” He turned around.

“Yeah,” responded the princess, smiling. “Names.”

Laslow finally cracked a grin of his own at this, brows furrowing in exasperation as he shook his head and continued walking. It was relieving to see, but also ate at a growing concern inside her – something had seemed off about the prince’s retainer since she had reconnected with him. A lack of enthusiasm, a tinge of apprehension in his eyes… whatever it was that was on his mind, it gnawed at Corrin in a way that made her anxious. It was just far enough beneath the surface that she could have been mistaken, could have just been imagining things after avoiding him for over a month.

For now, she let it sit and told herself it was just her imagination.

“…I can give you the details on who to avoid later. The most important thing to remember right now is to avoid the Princess, though… the Nohrian Princess that is, Lady Elise. She’s, erm… well, she’s a bit of a handful, to say the least, and she’s a talkative one, not to mention her retainers are a bit, well…”

“Isn’t that her?” Corrin spoke up, pointing across a nearby clearing to two approaching figures.

Laslow followed her gaze, cringing. “Ah, it is… and how unfortunate, it appears we’ve been spotted.”

The two watched as Princess Elise and her retainer scurried over, a wide smile on the latter’s face, while the former merely scowled in Laslow’s direction. Corrin recognized the royal well enough – she just wasn’t used to seeing her from this height or… proximity. She was shorter than herself and Laslow, with long pigtails, occasional twists of blonde dyed lavender and aqua-blue. Her dress was black, embroidered with swirls of white and pink, every last bit of it Nohrian, though lacking the same sharpness that her brother’s attire did. Most jarring was her face – from the brightness in her eyes to the curve of her grin and the dimples on her rosy cheeks, nothing about her countenance had any resemblance to that of Prince Xander, or even Azura. She was bursting with joy, and seeing joy wrapped up in the skin of a Nohrian was so strongly contradictory that Corrin was initially taken aback.

“Laslow! Hello hello hello!” She called, voice bubbly. Gloved hands found Laslow’s gauntlets and before she knew it Elise was spinning him around, bouncing up and down; the retainer seemed to hesitantly go along with it. “You’re up early! Just in time for the meeting!”

“Meeting?” He blinked, stopping their twirl. “I-I’m not sure what you mean, Lady Elise.”

“The war council meeting, of course, silly!” she chirped, going up on her tip-toes to ruffle his bangs. “Arthur just told me that Xander’s gonna make me go… so, that must mean you have to go, too, right?”

“Err…” Laslow gave a half-smile. “Well, I can’t argue with that. It’s at the central tent?”

“Yup!”

He sighed. “Well, alright, but only since you asked so nicely.”

“Yay!” Elise bumped into her own retainer, who up until now had been coldly regarding the whole exchange, sparing a single glance at Corrin. “Aren’t you glad, Effie? You guys can sit next to each other! I _know _how much you get along!”

“Lady Elise…” The woman’s voice was deep and subdued. “I know you’re upset that Prince Xander is making you attend these, but perhaps they would be a little more bearable without _this _guy making heart-eyes at every woman at the table.”

For a moment the princess’s apparent façade seemed to drop, and she puffed out her cheeks. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she finally took notice of Corrin’s presence – and all at once she was upon her, reaching out and touching her hair with a wide smile.

“Wow, who’s your friend, Laslow! She’s kind of pretty under all this armor!” Elise beamed, eyes catching on Corrin’s own and widening in fascination.

Laslow stumbled for a response, but the princess was too distracted to listen. _P… pretty? _

“Is she your friend? Your girlfriend? Or are you just trying to hit on new recruits?” Elise asked innocently over her shoulder. “I haven’t seen her before! What’s her name?”

He continued stumbling, so Corrin spoke first, letting words spill out of her mouth before she could think.

“Uhh... K-Kamui,” she stuttered, drawing the princess’s attention back to her. “My name – it’s Kamui.”

Elise steepled her hands together, beaming. “Kamui!? That’s such a pretty name…! It almost sounds Hoshidan!”

Corrin exchanged a nervous glance with Laslow. “Y-yeah, umm, my father was… from Hoshido.” She felt like she was choking on each word that left her mouth.

The girl’s countenance turned somber, and she took a step back. “Well, I’m sorry we’re going to war with Hoshido, Kamui. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t wanna, either. If it were my choice I’d make world peace and everyone would be happy.”

“T-thanks,” Corrin responded, unsure how to feel about the sentiment. _How is she even related to Prince Xander and King Garon? She’s so… she’s the stark opposite in every way imaginable. _“I appreciate it. And, err, Laslow and I are just friends.”

“Really!” Elise’s jaw dropped. “Go figure! Well, if you ever need anything, you ask me, alright, Kamui? It’s a scary world out there! Us girls have gotta lift each other up!”

“Right,” was Corrin’s cautious reply.

Laslow stepped partway between them, gently waving his hands at the princess. “Now, now, we don’t want to be late to that briefing, right? We should get moving, ahah…”

Elise peeped over the retainer’s shoulder to wave one last time at Corrin before following Effie down a different path. Laslow gave an apologetic glance over his shoulder, nodding before they were swallowed up by the mist. The princess’s bubbly voice rang out through the clearing for another minute or so before they at last were out of earshot.

Corrin frowned, hand rising to rub the side of her head. _Eh… I think I just did the opposite of what Laslow said I should do… _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it may seem like corrin recovered from the bomb dropped last time too fast, but it's more like while she hasn't gotten over it, she's processing it differently since she has matured a bit and all that. i figure she probably expended so much energy grieving over stuff like the ice tribe and sumeragi that she's learning to cope with heavy stuff a little better by now and makes the decision to try and process it in a way that's less detrimental to her health, and even with that weight there's still a part of her that's dying to socialize with others, so as much as she wants to lock herself away and shut others out, she's trying to stay open. good job corrin, you are learning to process negative emotions in a healthy way!! xander, please get in line!


	5. Hoshido

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the songstress, from her departure from cheve to her arrival at shirasagi. [1/2]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note - the time is kind of wonky in this chapter, the first scene takes place directly after a certain scene in chapter 2, the following scene takes place just after the end of azura's last segment in part 1, and the rest of it is just prior to mikoto's death (essentially if you remember the prologue chapters in fates, this and the next chapter are covering that) there's something in chapter 1 that might make more sense after reading this, too
> 
> and now, we are going Completely Off The Rails for a minute. forgive me in advance
> 
> (content warnings here for brief mentions of suicidal thoughts / mentions of pregnancy)

Leo’s chambers were even more cluttered than the last time Niles had seen them. Waning candles were scattered across the space, atop windowsills or bookshelves or counter-tops. They illuminated endless stacks of books and tomes, stacks of paper, dishes, tossed-aside clothes, so on and so forth. It was like he hadn’t cleaned in weeks, nevermind had a maid in to tidy up the place. He gave the area a sweeping gaze as Leo entered behind him, the door shutting with a heavy _clunk _and the lock following with a quieter _click._

The air was still and smoky. Niles clenched his jaw, uncomfortable, though he couldn’t pin down why. Back before everything had apparently gotten fucked over, this had been one of the places he felt the most at ease. Leo rounded his left, removing his soaked overcoat and nodding at his retainer to do the same.

They’d gone out to eat after the prince had pulled him aside, earlier, leaving Krakenburg the same route Odin and Selena had taken. That had all been normal enough – they’d caught up on this or that, mundane things, Leo complaining about his workload and Iago and the palace nobles… all normal. But there was an edge to the prince, something _off _that didn’t slip by Niles. He’d ignored it over dinner, figuring it’d come out sooner or later… assumed it had to do with the war or maybe something trivial like a lover. Nothing to be concerned about.

He figured it out soon enough, though. It had to be the one thing Leo never brought up, even as the subject meandered. His adoptive sister. When it finally occurred to Niles, his stomach twisted within him, and he found he no longer had an appetite, leaving Leo to nibble precariously at his own meal until they decided it was time to leave.

He did his best to block out the thoughts, distract himself with some other story, until Leo caught him by the shoulder when he intended to part ways and said, “Accompany to my quarters, will you, Niles?”

The walk back to the palace had been muted, after that. Krakenburg felt even more cold and uninviting than usual. All of the familiar places within the royal quarters that he’d used to frequent only made him want to leave. Until then, he hadn’t realized how much his time down south had changed him.

“Take a seat,” Leo offered, snapping him back to the present. His voice was subdued, but cut through the still air of the foyer, startling Niles. He prowled over to the main seating area and did as told, arms crossing atop the table.

He stared into the light of the candle for a while, uncomfortable in the silence. Eventually Leo returned with a set of tea, and on instinct, Niles took a cup, ignoring the fact that it was strange for a liege to be opening doors and preparing meals for a retainer.

Outside, rain pounded against the windows in sheets. An occasional flash of lightning lit the stacks of clutter filling Leo’s apartments.

As the prince sipped at his tea, Niles took the opportunity to speak first. “You been holding up alright? Can’t remember ever seeing your space, err… quite like this.”

Leo set the cup down. “I won’t lie to you, Niles. The war is finally coming to a head, and with Xander gone, a lot of it has fallen on my shoulders. That being said, I’ll be alright.” He looked away then, to the candle, lips twitching downward. “Actually, it’s you that I am concerned about, truth be told.”

Quirking a smile, Niles leaned back in the chair, the wood creaking in protest. “Why’s that?” He swirled his tea in the cup, anxious. “Afraid I’ve been slacking off too much while on vacation?”

Leo’s eyes met his again, a grave look on his face. “Niles… I’ll get right to the point. It is my understanding that you grew close with Azura while accompanying her and Camilla in Cheve.”

The smirk faded, and he sat back up, cup meeting the table with a heavy tap. He held Leo’s gaze. When the prince didn’t respond, he answered, “…Yes.”

If Leo was discontent that his retainer had some kind of relationship with his sister, he didn’t show it. There was nothing but anxiety, grief, and a little bit of pity in his soft features. “…I’m sorry.”

The words threw Niles into a pit. Where he’d more or less repressed things since he’d first heard about what happened – knowing it would’ve been stupid to expect anything less, knowing she herself had told him she likely wasn’t going to be alive much longer, that Garon wanted her dead – Leo’s direct acknowledgement of her death seemed to bring everything down on him at once, a painful reminder that it was real. Everyone else had just tiptoed around him when the news first surfaced, and he’d gone along with it, aloof, acting, acting, acting like he always did. Now, all of a sudden grief had emerged, wrapping its hands around his neck and it was squeezing, squeezing, pushing him under the water and drowning him.

“…I wish I could have done more. _Anything._” Leo’s voice, every other syllable shaking with emotion, brought him back to reality, a tether that kept him from suffocating, and he grasped hold of it, unaware of his tightening grip around the fragile teacup in his hand. “Father acted on his own accord. Iago, too. They didn’t tell me their plans, no matter how many times I asked… and I was too much of a coward to go against them. I didn’t even know what was happening before it was too late… They sent her to the border with Gunter, from that alone I should have… I should have at least been able to tell they were…” He paused, hand raising to cover part of his face. “Shit…”

Niles watched his liege choke out a few sobs. It was clear Azura’s death hadn’t quite hit him full-on yet, either. Actually, he was impressed at his own control in the moment – but then again, he’d never been that great at expressing himself, not genuinely. “Don’t be stupid, Lord Leo. There’s nothing you could have done, not if it was the king’s command.”

The words hung in the air, and after some time, Leo finally sobered. “You’re right. Sorry…”

Niles huffed down at the tea in his hand, a tired smile making its way back onto his face. “You have anything stronger than this?”

The prince across from him frowned, his humor not quite reaching through. “I’m afraid not. I’ve been abstaining, myself. I don’t want to fall into a pit I can’t pull myself out from. I fear Camilla may be doing just that as we speak.”

“Right,” Niles muttered, placing his hands flat on the table and standing up. “If there’s nothing else, then, milord…”

“Wait,” he added, raising a hand. “There… there is. Please. Just a minute more. I don’t want you to hear this from anyone but me.”

Niles stared down at his liege from across the table, the candle sending saffron light jumping across his features. He blinked, glad he hadn’t started shedding any tears of his own yet. _I’m tired, milord, _he wanted to say, _I don’t want to think about her right now. Can’t you leave it alone? _He wanted to leave. He didn’t want to think about any of this. He needed to forget… and yet an order was an order, so he sat down again, stiff, one arm atop the table. The wound behind his eyepatch burned, a dull sting beneath his skull. “…Right.”

Leo’s hands began to fidget with the teacup, and his gaze fell. _Still about Azura, _Niles could tell. _What else is there to say? Fuck’s sake. I just want to leave. _

“There’s… something you need to know. About the events leading up to… up to her passing.”

The words stung like acid, and his hand curled into a fist. Still, he persevered. Not much else could be worse than what he’d already heard, at least. “Yeah.”

“When… when she got here. Prior to Father sending her to the border, Niles – “ Leo eyed him tentatively, at last. So much apprehension. “She, ah… she was… she was with child.”

The word seemed to pass right through him, as if he’d suddenly become a ghost or was in some surreal dream. He stared at Leo for a long time, at a loss as to how to reply. The look on the man’s face told him well enough that this wasn’t any kind of cruel joke or dream, but reality, and one he’d idiotically dug himself into.

And _fuck_, it hurt, more than anything.

“I-I was confused at first, and it was kept under wraps…” Leo was rambling more to himself than anything, now. “I didn’t even get to see her in person, myself… but that’s the truth of it… Camilla confirmed that herself… I… I only assume, since the two of you were supposedly close, that…”

When he left the room, he heard Leo’s frantic footsteps behind him.

-*-

Azura stepped inside the threshold, shivering and numb all over. Instinctively, her hands finally moved to grasp at her arms in an attempt to keep warm. Somewhere behind her, she heard the door shut, though it barely registered. She was dizzy with fear. It wasn’t until she felt something draped around her shoulders that she remembered where she was and why. _The Pervenche estate. Iago._

“Shit, Azura. You’re freezing. Come inside,” Niles told her, and it was strange to see him show concern so openly. Rather than serve as a comfort, though, it only amplified her unease. The feeling that things weren’t right. _Nothing about what’s going on is right._

She said very little, and eventually was seated on a cushion beside a fireplace, which he took to lighting. Once that was done, he disappeared somewhere behind her, and she found herself shifting closer to the fire, drawn to its warmth. It was a good distraction, at least for a little while, and reduced her shivers to mild trembling.

Niles eventually returned, holding two mugs, some kind of ale or cider by the smell. It was warm as he handed her one, and she cupped it between her hands, trying to steady her breath. He didn’t pressure her, idly sipping at the drink and sparing a questioning glance over her way every now and then.

When she’d finally gathered herself enough to speak, Azura blurted out, “They’re… going to get rid of me, now.”

Her eyes were on the fire, so she couldn’t gauge his reaction. The feeling of dread within her gut threatened to overflow, spilling from her lips. “I’ve told you before that it was only a matter of time. Iago’s presence today says it all. I knew it was coming. I knew for so long, and I’m still…” She felt tears falling into her lap, the fire in front of her blurring, and silently cursed herself for it. “I’m – I’m _afraid. _I’m so _scared. _I finally thought life wasn’t that awful, and now I…”

She stopped there, bringing a hand up to press into her face as quiet sobs finally escaped her. Eventually she felt a hand on her back, warm through the layers of drenched cloth. Relenting, she leaned in, burying her tears in the fabric of his tunic and eventually snaking her arms around him; whatever mental block that had been preventing her from doing such a thing before had been torn down by the existential fear she felt. To her relief, he returned the gesture, and she stayed like that for a while, clinging to him like, if she tried hard enough, it would keep her from being torn away and brought back to Nohr.

“…I can find a way to get you out of here, Azura,” he said after some time, voice muted. She peered open her eyes, gazing absently over his shoulder and finding the star chart she’d gifted him in Cyrkensia hanging on the wall over his bed. “Cheve has a pretty big underground network. I’ve got connections. It isn’t a lot of time… but hey, maybe I could make something work.”

Again the feeling of wrongness settled in Azura’s gut. It wasn’t like Niles to make such an unrealistic offer, even if his nonchalant tone gave nothing of his desperation away. War was probably about to break out here, there was no way. “I’m not involving you any more than I already have. Iago… wouldn’t let me get away like that. And the guards saw me heading this direction. That would only put you and Leo in danger.”

He only hummed in response to that, and the silence was once again filled by the rain splattering down outside.

Eventually they moved apart, if only because her knees were getting sore from the position. There was genuine concern on his features now, in his eye as he measured her, and the way the light from the fire moved across his face made her feel a bit delirious, like she was swimming. Briefly, she thought back to the night in Cyrkensia.

_I want to live, _she thought, desperate.Nohr had taken her mother from her, her childhood from her, Corrin too. If she was going to lose it all, she'd felt desperately in that moment that she had to make what little time she had left count. With that thought running circles in her mind, she leaned forward, lacing a hand into his hair, and without any hesitation, kissed him.

The hours went by in a blur after that. She asked - near pleaded - if she could stay, much too afraid to go back to the castle – the castle Iago was in – and sleep alone in her bed with nothing but her thoughts. He obliged, and she could only hope it wasn’t just out of pity. The insecurity was soon forgotten, though, between caresses and whispers and heat; difficult as it was for her given the years of trauma and isolation that clawed at her skin at the mere idea of closeness with another, she lay herself bare for someone and found only relief.

At some point, the fire in the hearth finally died out, but it was paid little mind by the two of them. When fatigue eventually overtook them, they rested idly beneath the covers, the chill Azura had picked up while outside long gone. As they started to doze, Niles muttered something about preventive tea in one of the drawers of the nightstand. He had stirred, insisting he’d brew it, but seeing the exhaustion on his features she stilled him instead, urging him that it could wait until morning. He’d seemed willing enough to oblige.

The thought of morning only summoned dread back into the princess’s heart, though. As her partner fell into a deep slumber, she lay awake, stiff and anxious as fear crawled insistently back into her mind. The shadows around her twisted into abstract shapes, some resembling Iago, some the Faceless he commanded. She could not forget the glint in his eye when he had spotted her the past morning, and intrusive nightmares about what brutal way he planned on having her killed pressed on the walls of her skull until her head throbbed.

When the first gray tinges of light began to filter through the window, Azura was shivering again, even with a warm body just beside her, arm draped over her midriff. Exhaustion weighed heavily down on her as she slipped from the sheets, her shoulders drooping and her eyelids begging to close. Careful not to wake him, she pulled on her still-damp clothes, shivering as they clung to her skin, made for the front door, took a last look over her shoulder… and left.

Iago was waiting for her at the end of the block, and smiled when he caught sight of her. His arm swept out, gesturing to a carriage just down the street, surrounded by an escort of mounted royal guardsmen.

“We’ve done you the liberty of packing your belongings for you, Princess." His call was smug, sweet, sickeningly familiar. "Now, we don’t want to keep the king waiting, do we?”

Azura blinked once, twice, a third time before raising a hand to rub at her eyelids. The world around her was dark, and in her sleep a chill had settled over every inch of her body, making her bones groan in protest as she pulled herself upright. The rough, burlap blanket she’d been given fell off with the movement, and she quickly moved to wrap it closer about herself, gritting her teeth as her body was wracked by shivers.

She stared out at the wilderness before her. The landscape was craggy, wispy clouds drifting around the ground and the surrounding peaks. The few trees visible were tiny, barely as tall as she was due most likely to the high altitude, and their branches trembled in the wind. In the far distance, she could barely make out the outline of other mountains – some indication that dawn was on its way.

Azura pulled herself to her feet – only to nearly lose her balance again, catching herself just in time. Without thinking, a hand rose to rest on her abdomen, and she grimaced.

Outside, it was even colder, and she wrapped the blanket tighter around herself. The faint smell of food hung in the air, though, and when the princess rounded the edge of their makeshift tent, she found the source of the scent – a cooking fire.

They were only a few day’s out of the area of the Bottomless Canyon – a few days into Hoshido, though it was hard to believe considering the landscape still strongly resembled Nohr. The memories were bleak; everything following her departure from Cheve she had pushed to the back of her mind, tried to shut off her conscience knowing Garon was sentencing her to die. The site had ended up being at the Nohr-Hoshido border, to subdue a supposedly occupied fort alongside the veteran knight Gunter and a vile soldier named Hans. More than once the latter had leered hungrily at Azura, and it was only thanks to Gunter that she had avoided any further misery; even though they were not acquainted, he took to keeping Hans on a leash and more than once he stayed alert overnight when they set up camp, watching and waiting. It had been odd, but Azura had gotten the feeling that he had given up on life too, in his own way, and was just doing what he could before death closed its grip on him. The case of Hans had been clear enough – he was there as an overseer, to make sure Garon’s will was carried out.

They had instead found the border region to be empty, and the forts built on the other side abandoned. During their exploration, Hans had disappeared, only to suddenly reappear on the other side of a rope bridge they were crossing and cutting the lines with a loud guffaw. Gunter had shoved Azura out of the way before getting swallowed by the abyss, and she just barely managed to cling to the remaining planks as the severed bridge swung precariously against the cliffs, hanging on for dear life. She’d forced her body to climb, though she hadn’t been certain why at the time; she’d thought she was ready to die and had no reason not to be. She would never have a prayer of seeing any of her friends again, had nothing left to tether her to the world, yet she still clawed at the rope like an animal. The yawning canyon below her had been terrifying in that moment, and when she’d finally heaved herself onto the bleached soil of the ground above, she’d lay there for a long time, body heaving with each breath.

When she’d finally surveyed her surroundings again, she found no sign of Hans on the other side of the maw – except for his work. He’d severed all of the bridges that were left, leaving no way to traverse the canyon and return to Nohr. The planks had clattered loudly against the cliffs from below like mocking laughter.

Azura had sat there for a long time, feet mere inches from the edge, paralyzed with fear. Had this been Garon’s plan – was Hans going to return with a bow and fire at her like it was a hunting sport? Should she run for shelter – or were there Nohrian assassins waiting on this side to catch her alone? Did he intend for her to starve to death now that she was stranded there? Get killed by a Hoshidan patrol? Stupidly, her mind whirled for a way out – were there more bridges further north or south of this point? To her knowledge this was the closest both ends of the canyon grew to each other and no other spots were passable until the mountains sunk into the sea.

Her hands dug into the sandy soil beneath her, now hyperaware of the fact that by law it was not Nohrian, but Hoshidan.

How was it that she ended up here, and not Corrin? When it should have been her?

Eventually she got up and made for one of the forts, casting constant glances over her shoulder at the other side of the abyss. Hans did not reappear, nor did a Nohrian firing squad. All remained silent, and she was alone.

When she rounded the corner to the same fort her and Gunter had come out of what felt like hours ago, someone was standing there. Before she could even get a word out, there’d been a _thud_, a spike of pain on her temple, and all at once, everything went dark.

She would later come to find out that her assailant’s name was Rinkah. The woman was Hoshidan, and had a bit of a temper – but that was about all Azura knew. Currently, she was sitting across from the woman, at the firepit outside the tent she had just woken up in, some six day’s journey from the place she’d been captured at.

They’d bound her the first two days, and said very little. After that, it seemed they’d determined she wasn’t a threat, not in the weak state she was in – or maybe they’d realized she was carrying a child and took pity on her.

Azura avoided thinking about _that_ affliction at all times. It’d been too much to process, was too heavy a weight – even daring to let her fingers brush against the surface of such thoughts pulled her into a downwards spiral of guilt, longing, regret, and most of all self-loathing. She came to the conclusion that she hadn’t been in her right mind that night, even if the feelings she was acting on were true, and in the panicked state she had left in, the stupid tea had slipped her mind. She’d realized the mistake far too late – and even if she’d wanted to get her hands on some when there’d still been time to, Iago and his men had made a point to never let her out of her sights while they journeyed back to Windmire, forbidding her to speak or interact with anyone outside of their party.

She figured he and the king must have realized when she reached the palace, but it made no difference to them. Not twelve hours after her arrival, they handed her off to Gunter and Hans and sent her on her way. The only items they’d provided her were a new set of clothes – a dress, she noted, distinctly Nohrian, not the attire she was used to fighting in – a new lance, and, to her surprise, her mother’s pendant. Iago had handed it over with a glint in his eye. She could only imagine what kind of experiments he’d tried with it based off the magic she used to call forth from it to quell Corrin, but whatever the case, it seemed he’d gotten all the use he needed from it and was at least giving her the mercy of being buried with a remnant of her mother.

As the symptoms from her affliction only worsened with each week on the road, Azura felt any remaining drive to live slip from her. Every waking hour she was fatigued, and grew nauseous more often than not atop the horse they’d provided her. She dozed in the saddle more than a few times, falling unceremoniously into the mud. She couldn’t stop thinking about how pathetic she had become, and when Hans would taunt her, she eventually gave up trying to respond, taking the harassment until Gunter finally barked him away. Miserable, pathetic. The fact that she wouldn’t even be able to do anything for the child growing in her if she’d _wanted _to made her want to stay in the mud and never get back up.

Traveling with Rinkah, and her more enigmatic colleague Kaze, was different. It required her to pull at least some of her own weight, and draw some kind of drive from within herself however deep the pit of depression she was trapped in was. There was no horse for her to slump in the saddle of while the world passed by; when she lagged behind or tripped to her knees, Rinkah would roughly drag her back to her feet by her elbow, grumbling under her breath. If Kaze was around – he was gone more often than not during the day, only returning at night when they had meals – he would merely watch the two clamber along with an unreadable expression.

It had to be the morning of the seventh day, Azura figured as she settled across the fire from Rinkah, watching the flames move across the woman’s face. A week, then, and they were still in the mountains with no civilization in sight. She didn’t know what direction they were traveling in, why, nothing at all… and though she’d been next to silent the past week, curiosity was starting to press at the edges of her mind, so, gaze not moving from Rinkah, Azura decided to speak.

“Are we moving east?”

The question hung in the air, bringing Rinkah’s eyes up to hers. They flashed dangerously in the flames. Part of the princess worried that she’d see another beating from that mallet for the question, but the woman didn’t move, just kept squatting before the pot she had over the firepit and idly stirring whatever was within.

Eventually, Azura relented, dropping her gaze back down to the ground. She hugged the blanket tighter around herself as the wind picked up, sending some smoke into her face that brought forth a cough.

There was some rustling across from her – and when she opened her eyes again she found Rinkah had shifted over a few inches, moving in a way that redirected the breeze to blow the smoke elsewhere.

Azura watched, eyes still watery.

After a pause, Rinkah finally spoke again. Her voice sounded less harsh than usual, though it may have just been fatigue. “You are,” her free hand moved to her abdomen, “with child. No?”

The question caught her off guard, and she shrunk back, tense. Then, figuring there was no point to withholding it – they’d find out soon enough on their own – she responded, “…Yes.”

The Hoshidan’s expression seemed to darken at this. She didn’t say anything for a while; then, once the food was done, she split up portions for each of them and brought a bowl to Azura’s side, dropping to one knee. “You’re weak. Too weak. Drink it.”

Bewildered, the princess did as told. Though her stomach protested, the warmth that the soup spread through her was welcome.

“You want to know which way we are going,” Rinkah added after a while, sipping at her own food idly. Then she raised an arm, pointing towards the rising sun. “There.”

It was the most the Hoshidan had spoken to her since clobbering her in the head, and Azura was oddly humbled… even if, when they did pack up that morning and start moving again, the sun was on her right. _North, _she thought to herself with a frown. _It’s the first time I’ve been able to tell where the sun is since crossing the border… but we’re heading north. _She stared off to the left, across the jagged array of mountains. Nohr was that way, the way she had come from… and part of her thought it was good that they weren’t traveling west. Whatever awful fate might’ve been in store for her in custody of these Hoshidans, it came as some relief to know they weren’t going to lead her back to some Nohrian death squad that would get rid of her permanently. She would be glad never to have to see Iago again in her life.

The days after that were quiet, and sometimes tough. Even as their path curved eastward and they descended from the border region, Azura was in an upward fight against her own body. Each new pain was unwelcome, made her feel even more like an outsider in her own skin. She wasn’t sure what it was that kept her going, one foot in front of the other; it might have been simply curiosity, a need to see what was on the other side of the curtain. She wanted to see Hoshido with her own eyes and gain some insight into where it was Corrin had come from. Maybe every Nohrian had the same childish desire.

They moved from one range of mountains to the other, but this one was set higher and where before they’d taken to traveling along peaks, here they ventured lower, within the valleys that ran between. These mountains were coated in snow, stretching higher into the cloudless sky – the latter of which still awed Azura even after traveling beneath it for close to a month. It was somehow terrifying and beautiful; a constant reminder that she was a prisoner in a nation which her family had committed atrocities against, and a high-ranking one at that. But in her stupor, she couldn’t help but just _stare _at it for hours on end sometimes, at the deep blues of midday or the swirling warm hues of the sunset and wonder how anyone could live without this. There was something oddly nostalgic about it, too.

At night, though, she avoided the sky – tempting as it was. The first time she’d gotten a clear look at the array of stars above them, something in her chest seemed to cave in on itself, the effect so potent that her legs had given way beneath her. She’d had to fight off the overwhelming need to cry. Surprisingly, Rinkah and her partner had given her space.

As time went on, traveling became harder and harder. At times Azura could barely last half a day before she needed to lay down and rest. The two Hoshidans were surprisingly accommodating, and would speak among themselves in a language she didn’t understand while she succumbed to fatigue.

Kaze, she found, spoke more comfortably in their common tongue, though he wasn’t very talkative. He had her confirm his suspicions about her being a high-ranking Nohrian. Azura didn’t have the energy to come up with a lie, and instead told him flat-out who she was. Something had passed over his features after that, but she’d been too tired to try and pick out what. Disdain, probably. It didn’t matter to her.

Aside from that, conversation was limited. They showed odd concern for her. How she was feeling, how long she could walk for, if she was hungry, dizzy. For whatever reason, they wanted her in good shape when they arrived at whatever distant destination they were heading to, and were willing to sacrifice time to make that so. They asked very little about her background, if they even cared. And they talked frequently amongst themselves, in Hoshidan. Kaze’s tone was sometimes strained, Rinkah’s too, at other times it seemed like they were in disagreement. Azura found herself wondering what they’d do with her, where they planned on taking her. If she was too much of a dead weight, would they leave her for the wolves? Considering they knew of her status, though, and assuming they trusted her word, they’d probably hate to do such a thing, knowing the amount of money or power that could be gained with a bargaining chip as tempting as a Nohrian princess. Why didn’t they call for backup, why was it only the two of them, two seemingly completely different people who held little affection for the other? Were they afraid of letting word get out, should more join their party? Of someone deciding he wanted all the money, and stealing Azura away (gods knew she wouldn’t, couldn’t put up a fight at this point). Were they in disagreement over how the prize would be split between them? Who, even, would gain from having a princess in their possession?

Azura had to think that one over. She supposed many people could. Bandit leaders, rogue militias, criminals, all the types that surfaced when she imagined such a scenario emerging in Nohr.

She never would have guessed that the two planned on delivering her directly to the capital itself, _themselves – _until Rinkah told her one day over dinner.

“You look surprised,” she observed, taking a chomp out of the leg of a large bird she’d caught some time earlier.

Surprised was an understatement. Azura had felt the color leave her face. “Is that where we’re going?”

“Yeah. It’s a hassle. Luckily, Kaze is here.” She took another bite, looking somehow discontent.

_I wonder if that would’ve been the plan, if it was just her,_ she thought to herself. _Why does Kaze want to bring me there?_

She felt like she was missing a big piece of things, and groping blindly for it only made her more anxious.

The next day, they arrived at what seemed to be a small village nestled in a snow-coated valley. It was abandoned, or appeared that way, but there were signs of recent movement – footprints in the snow and mud that were not their own, an old firepit, and a few mules were resting in what seemed to be a stable. Rinkah led her to a hut and urged her inside, shutting the door behind them and immediately getting to lighting a fire in what looked like a hearth, set in the center of the room.

“Sit tight,” she said, heaving herself to her feet. “We will be here a few days.”

With no further explanation, then, the woman left, leaving Azura in the sparse hut with nothing but her thoughts. After a while she laid down on some of the furs and tanned leathers scattered around the hearth, listening to the wind rush by outside. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt warm, even with the sun beaming down on her during the day. She cursed the stupid gown Garon had given her prior to leaving Krakenburg, wished that Rinkah and Kaze would have given her some different clothes, foolish as it was. She tried keeping a blanket wrapped around her at all times. Even looking at her own body at this point was exhausting and put her in a bad headspace what with the way it was changing. The days of happiness and freedom from her time in Cheve – short as the period was – felt so distant now, and the purgatory she’d been trapped in the past three months felt like some kind of penance for her daring to ever have a moment of genuine pleasure in her otherwise miserable life.

Her thoughts darkened from there, and at some point she fell asleep, because when the door slid open some indeterminate amount of time later, she jolted upright, groggy.

Kaze entered, eyeing her meticulously. He carried a few extra blankets in his arms along with what seemed to be some herbs, but standing out to Azura still were the weapons sheathed at his belt. She had figured he was a soldier of some sort before, but with the new knowledge she’d gained from her conversation with Rinkah, she was infinitely more suspicious.

He knelt before the hearth, attaching a pot to the rail that ran above it and emptying a waterskin into it. Then he worked to grind up a few herbs, still watching her with caution.

Then, finally, he said, “Rinkah must have told you something, didn’t she?”

Azura kept a cool head. “I understand our destination is the Hoshidan capital.”

He stared at her for a while, features giving away nothing of a reaction. “That’s right.”

She sat back against the wall, wincing at the slight pain the movement brought her. He kept up whatever he was doing with the pot, stirring in the herbs. “Directly to the crown, then… you have the standing to do that?”

Kaze didn’t lift his gaze this time, locks of greenish hair falling over his face as he stared into the pot. “You’re keen. Yes. I happen to be of relation to one of the prince’s retainers.”

_Retainers. _The word stung, and she had to think through her next question, not daring to drop the conversation when Kaze was being this talkative.

“Rinkah seemed less keen to the idea,” she finally articulated, rubbing her hands together beneath the blanket. “Why is that?”

He eyed her again, this time tiredly. They were both aware that she was a prisoner asking questions, that he had no obligation to answer, but he was still entertaining her, and Azura would take whatever he’d give.

He posed a different question as he continued with his stew, the slightest edge of humor in his tone. “We don’t need to be looking over our shoulders for some royal knight chasing after his betrothed, now, do we?”

It took her a minute to realize what he was asking, and she grimaced. “No,” she said, “nobody is coming for me.”

Whatever humor had possessed him before dissipated. He took the pot off the fire, pouring it into a cup, and handed her it. She took it, eyeing it with scrutiny.

He frowned. “You don’t need to be concerned. I have no intention of poisoning you. It should help with the pain.”

She stared into the cup, lips curving into a frown, and, suddenly bitter, she told him, “I don’t come from a background where I can just trust others like that, unfortunately.”

He stood, crossing his arms with a neutral look. “You seem eager enough to finish Rinkah’s meals.”

“Rinkah wasn’t planning on taking me to the crown,” Azura muttered. From this angle she had a close look at the assortment of weapons across his figure. He couldn’t be any ordinary soldier.

“Rinkah could have just as easily left you to die,” he said. “We just escaped captivity ourselves. It was not beneficial to take on a third, with nothing but the clothes on our backs.”

That was new. Azura’s mind worked to add this new piece to the dizzying puzzle in her head, but it just didn’t fit anywhere… except that they just happened to be around the border at the time.

Kaze walked back to the hearth, back to her, now. “…If you can believe it, Rinkah is cautious at the plan because of the child you are carrying. She thinks we would be endangering it.”

The princess was taken aback by this, and for half a second assumed he was lying. His tone was genuine, though… and it would explain the odd amount of care the woman had shown for her, despite everything. “…Endangerment meaning that I would be executed before it’s born.”

Kaze turned around and gave her a long, conflicted look. “They aren’t that cruel. As it stands, they have no reason to execute you.”

That was almost laughable. Azura returned his stare. “I’m the daughter of Garon,” she said dryly, hating the words.

“And you’re more useful to them alive than you are dead,” Kaze retorted.

Perhaps he was right, but it still bothered her. Clearly he was more familiar with the royal family than she was…

“No, the endangerment would come from backlash. The royals may treat you reasonably, but the public may not share the feeling. Things would become even more problematic if they found out we were protecting not only a Nohrian princess, but her child…”

Azura furrowed her brow. She wondered how such a situation would play out if this were Nohr. Garon would likely have anyone protesting executed. Or maybe dispose of the child entirely… her thoughts went to Corrin.

“…Queen Mikoto is nothing like Garon. You will see, soon enough, Princess Azura,” Kaze said, arms falling to his sides again.

_Mikoto. _Her hand went to her pendant, clutching it close to her chest. _Corrin’s mother. If I was brought before her… I could tell her the truth. _The thought sent a shiver up her spine. _I could tell her that her daughter is alive._

That was the limit of their interaction for a few days. She eventually found out that the village they were in was of the Fire Tribe – the clan Rinkah was from, though this time of year most of them scarcely traveled these parts. They had a loose alliance with Hoshido, each respecting the other’s borders… a far cry from Nohr’s relationship with the Ice Tribe. The reason they stopped was to restock on supplies and assess their next steps, which the two Hoshidans made sure to do in a language Azura couldn’t eavesdrop in.

After that, they were on the move again. Azura found that for all the rest she got, she was still sluggish, still needed to rest after every incline and drag herself out of her bedroll at the beginning of each day. Kaze and Rinkah talked among themselves. The sun rose in front of her and set behind her. More and more seemed to ache each day. Once or twice, the thought of taking her own life crossed her mind. The cliffs were high enough, in some spots. She had thought the same when traveling with Hans and Gunter, but never followed through. She couldn’t say why.

At some point, she and Kaze were alone again, eating while Rinkah went out to fetch their pack mule after it had strayed too far from the path. Above, the stars glared down; they had set up camp along a ridge, so there were no cliffs or trees to protect her from their scrutiny, and memories haunted her.

_I hope he doesn’t know, _she thought to herself, the mere idea that he could making her sick with shame. _I hope he never finds out. He deserved so much more. I never should have allowed myself to get close to him. _It was unrealistic, of course. He had to know from the day she left – he was more observant than she was, and hadn’t been in the same panicked headspace she had. She didn’t know who else besides Iago, Garon and perhaps a few of their escort that’d observed her on their way back to the palace would have known, but if word had gotten out at all, she hated to think how much more difficult that would have made things for him. The populace of Krakenburg had already had its fun speculating about what kind of relationship they’d had before Azura herself had realized; it wouldn’t take that much to put two and two together. She hated that even after her departure from Nohr, she’d be causing him more trouble. It was sickening.

She sat up, forcing herself to look at something else. Kaze was the only other thing around, so she watched him skin whatever animal it was he had for a while, before asking, “How was it the two of you escaped Nohr?”

He glanced back, lips quirking a bit. “An interesting tale, Princess Azura. As a matter of fact, we were let go by the crown prince himself.”

Her jaw went slack. “…What?”

“Garon had us set for execution, along with a dozen or so other criminals and individuals suspected for spying,” he said. “We were captured in Cheve and brought to a Nohrian city… I can’t remember the name, but it was south of where we found you. I had been dragged around by a chain and malnourished for weeks, at that point. I… wasn’t in my right mind. They were questioning us before the king, and his son, among some others, trying to pull some information we didn’t have, names we didn’t recognize.” He darkened, and his eyes seemed to be elsewhere. “Rinkah and I were beaten awfully. They didn’t get a word from either of us. Garon had the interrogators dismissed and told his son to go finish the job. Like we were a waste of time. I foolishly told him, then, that I was working for Princess Corrin... that she lived and she was leading the Chevois rebellion that he was working to destroy.” He shut his eyes, and in the period of silence Azura could hear her own heart beating loudly in her chest. “I don’t know why, but… it seemed like something changed in the prince’s demeanor, then. What lies Garon told his people of the butchering that resulted in King Sumeragi and Princess Corrin’s deaths, I’m not aware… but it was almost like Prince Xander knew something of the truth of it, and spared us out of pity. I say spared, but… he still knocked the both of us near unconscious. When I woke, I was in a drainage ditch outside the city limits, along with Rinkah, our gear left in a sack beside us. I don’t know how he managed it, or why… but that’s how it is. We left that night and didn’t look back.”

Azura thought about Xander for a time, wondered what something like this meant. It would have been disobeying a direct order from their father… but then, so was keeping Corrin’s secret, and so was freeing Felicia. It brought her some solace to know that she had helped make such an impact on him.

As dawn broke in the distance and the stars above began to melt away, she dwelled on Kaze’s words. “You said you served Princess Corrin,” she said. “Do you? Really?”

“Of course not…” His brow furrowed as though offended. “She’s long dead.”

Azura hummed. Part of her wanted to tell him – but the risk was too high. If he wasn’t who he said he was… or if there was even the slightest risk that word could get out, and could reach the wrong ears, she would never forgive herself.

“…I once did, however. Or rather, I was going to; I was still only a child when she and the king were killed.”

She blinked in thought. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” he responded, and it was another point where part of Azura wanted to mistrust him, but his tone was so sincere. “My family has a history of serving the crown. It was to be my duty to work under Princess Corrin when I was old enough.” His face twisted. “Instead, I could do nothing to save her.”

“I’m sorry,” was all Azura could offer.

He gave a look of genuine confusion. “Why would you be? War is war; it was to my understanding you Nohrians have no issues with acts like that.”

She frowned, suddenly finding herself upset. “…I would never celebrate something like that. And I know many – _knew _many that would share the sentiment. Garon acts on his own accord.” _Now I’m defending the country that made my life the way it is. Is that it, Azura?_

“…If you say so,” said Kaze, pursing his lips.

Some time after, Kaze parted ways with them. Rinkah didn’t specify where he was going, or for how long. They traveled slowly and deliberately. Eventually Azura had to take to riding atop the pack mule most of the time, though she protested the idea when the Hoshidan woman first proposed it. Accepting a handicap meant acknowledging something was happening to her that she didn’t want, didn’t ask for, yet brought upon herself with her own childish actions.

They moved from village to village; Rinkah was careful to keep them clear of any other Flame Tribe groups, sometimes camping them outside a settlement for a day or two until the travelers occupying it left. Azura knew she would be dead without this woman. At one point a pack of Faceless moved through, while they were holed up in a hut; Azura watched them pass through a gap in the house’s wooden frame, fear seizing her heart. They passed eventually, though, and that morning she was on the move again.

Eventually, they began to descend. The snow-capped mountains were suddenly behind them one afternoon, replaced by the most vibrant foothills Azura had ever seen. The breeze carried the sweet smell of flora and fruit; for a week or so they traveled along a riverbed, and the view of the water glistening beneath the sun as it ran onto the horizon was one of the prettiest things imaginable.

They were resting in another settlement along the river one afternoon when Rinkah burst through the door, stormed up to her, and held out a hand to help pull her to her feet. “Faceless,” she said, “across the river. They know we are here. Rampaging. We need to move. It’s not safe here.”

The words chilled Azura, but she complied.

There was something odd about seeing Faceless in Hoshido, something off. It set Azura on edge, to see a creation that was so intimately Iago’s so far from Nohr. She wondered why Iago’s party hadn’t just dropped her in the Forlorn Woods to begin with, spared the trip to Hoshido. The pack caught up with them, of course; the mule was slow and Rinkah was even slower. She fought like a monster, though, expertly taking down the beasts like she’d been doing it for years while Azura lingered behind like a frightened maiden. One knocked Rinkah off her feet, then, sending her roughly into the dirt; she barely rolled out of the way in time to avoid a fist the size of an adult man crushing her skull into mush, then roughly brought her mace up to crack a few bones in its fingers. The pack was narrowing, but…

…but Rinkah was then thrown at least eight feet back by the swipe of one’s arm, and, winded, wasn’t able to stop another beast from charging past her, up towards Azura. Her breath caught in her throat as it climbed the hill she’d retreated to. She wished to the gods that she had her lance, _anything_, but even if she did, she doubted her ability to fight in her state. It rounded the top of the ridge, casting a long shadow across the grass that engulfed Azura as it closed in. _I don’t want to die, _she realized, staring it down. _I don’t want to die yet. Mother—_

Then, with a quiet _thunk, _a blade suddenly planted itself into the beast’s neck, just beneath its helmet.

The princess turned, frantic. Expecting Kaze…

…It was not. Rather, it looked like him, but their attire was different…

Before she could get a good look, though, they rushed forward, planting two more final knives into the creature’s throat that sent it collapsing into a pool of its own blood. They spared a look at Azura, eyes hidden behind the long brim of the hat they wore, and then descended the slope towards the rest of the pack. Between the newcomer and Rinkah, the few remaining beasts were fought off; the woman began barking at the newcomer as soon as the last one fell, and Azura urged the mule back down the slope, anxious as to why they'd gone through the trouble of rescuing her.

“…even speak Hoshidan!?” the woman was shouting, this time in the common tongue.

They dismissed her, instead reaching out to take the reins of Azura’s mount and lead it through the field of corpses. “We can’t stay here. They’ll rise soon enough, and there are more groups around here.”

“You-“ Rinkah continued to ramble even as she followed suite, but the princess didn’t hear it. She didn’t hear any of it.

No, because that voice was too familiar.

_But, _she told herself, _it couldn’t be. It couldn’t._ _It couldn’t…_

But it was; when they passed the last building they looked over their shoulder, at Azura; then pulled down their scarf and tilted their hat back.

“_Jakob_,” the word slipped out, and she felt like she was truly losing her grip with reality now. “What are you…”

He gave a smile, a full smile, one she didn’t realize she desperately missed, and then tipped his head in a bow. “Happy to be of service, milady.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow. so that happened ! 
> 
> @ the entire "baby realm" thing in fates: Why. why. I get you wanted child units in this game devs but Why Like That.. you expect us to believe all these characters with severe issues with the parenting they received would just toss their kids in a portal and let mother nature babysit them. i
> 
> (also was Plan B Tea actually a thing in ye olde times? i always thought it was something george rr martin made up but through googling i guess it actually was a thing)
> 
> anyways, I felt icky writing this one because i feel like azura is really OOC. to be fair we never really see her put into a situation in the games where she doesn't have a good grip on things or a level head, though, and despite being like one of two titular characters I feel like they never gave us a good look into her thought process, most of her supports are very like. reactionary, and light-hearted given she has a genuinely awful past. azura fans, forgive me for what i must mcfreakin do


	6. Mother / Ganglari

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The songstress's dormant memories are retrieved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soo... really dropped that huge bomb in May and then didn't update for 5 months huh? hahah..

It was an odd thing to hold a child in her arms - and her own, no less, however numbing the thought was. It wasn’t like the nobles in Krakenburg had ever been close enough with her to let her hold their newly-born children when she was growing up as she’d often seen Camilla do, and she’d been isolated enough from the chaos of the concubine infighting that she never met any of her would-be step-siblings. Even Elise, she did not meet until she was up to her knee in height. 

His hair was unmistakably hers, the same shade of greyish blue, and when he would peek open his eyes her own, too, looked back, pale and yellow. It was unsettling, deepened the dreamlike feeling that’d come over her ever since she’d entered Hoshido. 

That being said, the shade of his still wrinkly skin and the shape of his face was revealing of his father. Once Azura noticed the resemblance, she couldn’t stop dwelling on it. It was so strange.. Even as he wept in her arms he didn’t feel real, felt like something her mind had invented, part of the ongoing dream she was having.

She’d been surprised when Rinkah had asked what she planned on calling him. A name? Azura hadn’t been thinking of one. When nothing came to her mind, she felt ashamed, and withdrew. She didn’t have anything to offer, a testament to her absolutely shitty upbringing, not even a beloved family member to name him after - all she recalled was her mother, but Arete wouldn’t have felt right. The same went for his other parent. He was the product of two nobodies - isn’t that what had brought them together in the first place?

The weather had done nothing to improve her mood as they sat huddled up in a vacant Fire Tribe settlement in the week following, a constant mist with intermittent light rain. Rinkah had insisted it was a sign of summer, which was good in that the lower they descended from the highlands the warmer it would become - but bad in that they would have to make that trip soon, since the tribe would be returning to these parts in the next few weeks.

_ Shigure  _ is eventually what the woman had suggested to her, pointing out the little window she was seated by at the gloomy weather. The old Hoshidan word to describe it. Azura had settled on it, just happy to have something to refer to the child by.

As it stood, Shigure was oblivious to his mother’s lamenting. He slept, occasionally cried, but most of the time would just look at his surroundings with curiosity. More than once, she caught Jakob’s stare moving between herself and the child, and it would bring the heat of embarrassment to her face because although he hadn’t said a thing about her situation since his arrival, he must’ve known as well as she did - if he didn’t make the assumption before the child was born, which she sorely doubted, he’d always been observant, he would have known as soon as he saw the resemblance. Regardless of how low he might’ve thought of her, though, he never vocalized it. He only offered his full support.

Shortly after, Kaze returned from wherever he had run off to. Luckily, Rinkah had been on guard at the time of his approach, saving them from dealing with a potentially deadly scuffle between Jakob and the ninja. His attention had immediately gone to Azura as he stepped inside, then to the bundle in her arms; as usual, though, his expression remained blank and unreadable.

He had brought supplies with him – a change of clothes for Azura, nothing too comfortable or eyecatching but enough to move around in. Still no weapon, though, despite the hoards of Faceless roaming the wilderness around them. There was a more ornate piece of fabric too, with embroidered patterns, which was used to swaddle the child. Other than that, he’d brought essentials that could supposedly last them until they made it to the capital.

That was his next revelation – that they were wasting no more time here and would make for the Hoshidan capital immediately to seek an audience with Queen Mikoto. He’d gone ahead to communicate his findings to her and have her advise him on how he should proceed. Azura was still a prisoner, but promised a fair reception as Mikoto was apparently eager to meet her face-to-face. She complied – it wasn’t like she had anywhere else to go.

Rinkah had lashed out at this point, telling Kaze that he failed to mention the issue of the newborn. Apparently Mikoto had agreed that bringing the child inside the royal palace would endanger all of them, most of all Shigure himself, and so instructed Kaze to take it to a home on the east side of the capital where she knew the owner well.

When the day came that Shirasagi’s walls appeared on the horizon and Kaze advised they follow through on that plan, Azura had mixed feelings. Mixed because she felt like she should feel worse, handing her child off to probably never see again; but she’d been in too much of a haze to really absorb everything or accept the fact that she was its mother. Should she have felt more attached?

“Wait,” Jakob offered, approaching them. “Let me take him.”

Kaze had eyed him in vague suspicion. “I’m afraid I can’t exactly trust you.”

His brow furrowed, and his lip curled up in disdain. “What the hell else am I going to do with it besides take it to the  _ one  _ place we’ve established is safe? Assuming your queen is true to her word.” His hands planted themselves on his hips. “ _ I  _ certainly can’t support a child long enough to bring it back to Nohr, and Nohr is probably even  _ less  _ safe for it than Hoshido at this point.” Jakob raised his chin. “Besides, it would draw less suspicion if a stranger were to drop him off than a close acquaintance of the crown, no?” He turned to Azura, then, softening. “Milady, I doubt I can accompany you to their queen, anyway. We may have to part for a time. Please, let me do you this last favor until our paths cross again.”

She watched him for a long time, at a loss for words. “I… I appreciate it, Jakob… I wish I could repay you.” Her throat clenched and heat sat behind her eyes, but she didn’t allow herself to cry.

Jakob rewarded her with a polite nod. “Just stay alive, milady. I’ll be sure to find you again, when the time is right.”

He departed with Shigure swaddled in his arms, the long shadows of an approaching dusk swallowing them up. Azura watched them leave, loneliness swelling in her heart, and her hand raised to clutch the amulet around her neck.  _ I’m making the right choice. I know it. _

Kaze and Rinkah wasted no time in moving forward, Azura in tow. By the time they reached the gates the sun had set completely. To her surprise, they wandered through without so much as a glance from the guardsmen, no security check, no questions, nothing. 

The dizzying contrast to Nohr was only amplified the deeper into the city they journeyed. The streets were full of people, markets bustling, not unlike Cyrkensia but there was a warmth and familiarity here that Nestra lacked. And a closeness; people huddled shoulder-to-shoulder around food stalls, spouses, some with children…

“Azura,” Rinkah’s voice broke through her daze, “let’s move. The palace is still pretty far.”

She nodded, accepting the woman’s hand as she led them through the crowds.

Eventually they entered a deeper district of the city, and just like that the ambience of voices, merchant’s shouts, and vague music faded, replaced with the silence of night. Wind gently whistled through the leaves of planted trees, and the occasional bark of a dog in the distance breached the stillness. The air was warm, muggy even, and smelled faintly of flowers.

_ What would it have been like,  _ she thought to herself,  _ growing up here, instead of Nohr? _

Shirasagi came into sight, eventually, and it was unlike anything Azura had ever seen. It looked like something out of a fantasy novel, a beautiful, intricate tower with too many floors for her to count. At the base was a plaza that they entered into from a much more tightly-guarded gate, and the grounds were expansive, running around the tower, gardens and ponds, barracks here and there, more land hidden behind corners and paths. Kaze led them directly to the main entrance of the palace, silent.

Guards were everywhere, and they more closely reminded Azura of Krakenburg with the way they glowered at her from beneath their helms and hoods. It only made sense, given this was the royal estate. The thought sent her into a daze - up until now Shirasagi was simply the faraway place Corrin had described so starry-eyed to her as a child, something Azura was sure that she would never see in her lifetime. Catching the glare of another guard, she thought to herself,  _ I should be grateful I am not entering in shackles… though I may as well be.  _ Marvel at the place aside, it was impossible to shake the fact that she was entering as an enemy and a prisoner.

They took the steps up to the doorway to the massive first floor of the tower, Kaze slipping inside as casually as if this were his own bedroom. Rinkah was more on edge, cautious, eyes darting back and forth.

The throne room was as grandiose as everything else she’d seen, infinitely more colorful than Garon’s, even in the late hours of the night. Lanterns on either side of the scarlet rug that ran the length of the hall provided plenty of light, and the shadows of the many white Hoshidan banners hanging above them waved gently back and forth. The throne itself was beautiful, so unlike any art she’d ever seen, and pristine enough that it was hard to believe it saw any use.

At some point a fourth figure had joined their party and was walking alongside Kaze; Azura jumped when she noticed the man. The two spoke in hushed tones, walked far enough ahead of her that they were out of earshot. He was the same height as Kaze, wore around the same outfit and seemed to have the same build; she concluded silently that he must be another retainer.

They finally stopped at the head of the throne room. Azura was curious about the queen’s presence (or lack thereof) but said nothing, preferring instead to measure the newcomer.

He noticed her gaze, at last, and turned, brow knitting together, though whatever sneer he seemed to be making was hidden by the mask obscuring the lower part of his face. One of his eyes did not open. “Mind yourself, Nohrian. You should be grateful enough we don’t have you in chains.” The words came in a sharp growl, full of nothing but the disdain that she’d been anticipating this whole time.

Kaze rested a hand on the man’s shoulder, gaze cool. “Calm yourself, Saizo. We are only acting on Queen Mikoto’s request.”

The ninja, Saizo, scoffed at this, shrugging Kaze’s hand off and turning to face away from her again. “I expected this softness from you, Kaze, but not a member of the Fire Tribe... “ with that he gave a sidelong look at Rinkah, who only crossed her arms, chin held high.

Tension filled the air as they waited for what, or whom, Azura did not know. She eyed the throne room again, thoughts instinctively returning to Corrin and all the stories she had told her about her family. She’d spoken of nothing but kindness and patience when it came to her mother, yet… yet…

Yet Garon had murdered the woman’s spouse, supposedly her daughter as well, sent their kingdoms into war and caused an unknown number of Hoshidan deaths, placed an enormous pressure on her house and nation, likely traumatized her children… even if what they went through was tame compared to what Xander and Camilla had dealt with, it was no small burden to grow up without a father. Azura knew that clear as day. Garon had done all those things to Mikoto, and by law Azura was his child. Would a mother not seek vengeance, retribution, if the means to it showed up unarmed on her doorstep? Surely she couldn’t be the same sweet person Corrin had grown up with, not after some thirteen years of dealing with Nohr’s warmongering.

_ You were prepared to die in the first place,  _ part of Azura reminded herself, thinking back to the day she was taken from Cheve.  _ Why does it matter, now? Let go. _

Footsteps broke her from her daze, and her head snapped to the side, looking past Kaze and Saizo to a dark corridor leading to some other part of the castle. There was a glint of light in the shadows; someone was approaching.

As they stepped through the threshold, Saizo fell to a knee all at once, head bowing. “Milord.” Kaze followed suit quickly after. Rinkah only crossed her arms. The man stood at least a head taller than the ninjas, with long, wild chestnut hair that fell across his back; he was young, but his presence somehow gave off an air of power. The robes he wore were all soft edges though, loose and flowing… it felt like something was missing from his appearance that should’ve been there, and it was hard to pin down exactly who he could have been or what significance he had aside from being some vaguely important political figure, given the show of respect the Hoshidans had given him.

He approached, another ninja flanking him along with a handful of guards. This one was a woman, equipped just as heavily as the two kneeling before her were, in contrast to the unarmed man she seemed to be guarding.

_ Guarding…  _ Azura blinked.  _ Retainer… If she’s a retainer too, then… _

“Saizo,” he called, voice a similar baritone to the ninja’s but less inflamed. “Thank you. Apologies for my lateness. Kaze,” he then addressed, and the both of them rose. “You’ve arrived early, I see. My mother is asleep.”

_ Mother…  _ The word echoed in Azura’s skull even as she kept her gaze trained on the ground, her expression neutral. 

“Milord, apologies for the lack of notice. The last few days of travel have been… hectic, to say the least. But I did not wish to waste any more time. I hope this is acceptable.”

“It is. You are dismissed; get some rest. It is much deserved. Take this woman from the Fire Tribe with you; if she so pleases, she can rest here as well.”

Kaze nodded, casting a look back to Azura… then left the room the way this man had come, Rinkah tailing him with her arms crossed. Saizo, too, stalked off, though whether he left or not she couldn’t tell. He seemed to slip into the shadows.

“You,” the man started, curt, eyes drilling into her, “are Princess Azura, daughter of King Garon… are you not?”

Her jaw clenched. “Yes.” It was all she could offer. Suddenly the weight of Garon’s sins felt excessively upon her shoulders, knowing this man would be judging her for his crimes. But she kept her lips sealed.  _ There is nothing I can say to him that would improve the situation. I need to speak with the queen, and the queen alone. And then… then… _

“I am Ryoma, high prince of Hoshido,” he said, voice muted. There was an odd mix of grogginess and defeat that detracted from the strength of his tone. “My mother has requested we provide you with quarters for the night. Please follow me.”

He didn’t allow her any time, and simply turned, strolling off, his guards flanking him. Azura almost stumbled after, stunned by his words.  _ Ryoma… Ryoma…  _ For a heartbeat she was back in the dungeons of Krakenburg, seated on the hard, cold ground across from Corrin as they flipped through books and chattered idly. “ _ I have an older brother too. His name’s Ryoma.”  _ But - no… Corrin had been describing a kid, a bright and caring boy, and the stone wall of a man in front of her was…

..._Was_ _Ryoma_, was Corrin’s older brother, there was no way around it. Azura’s hands clenched at her sides.

Their journey was made in silence, through corridors warm with the lingering heat of day that smelled of wood and incense. She was led to a compact room with a bedroll near the corner and a single window, too small for anyone to fit through. A single candle flickered by the door.

Prince Ryoma remained outside as she ventured through the small door, and another guard slipped out from the shadows, lingering across the hall, no doubt there to keep an eye on her. “If you have any intention of trying to run - which, given you came here willingly, I have my doubts, but regardless - I would suggest letting it go. A guard will be here until the queen sends for you in the morning.” That was all he had to say; he bowed, gave her one more cold look over, and then departed, the floorboards creaking under his weight.

Azura eyed the ninja across the hall, then cautiously shut the door. When she lifted her hand off it, she found it was shaking; her whole arm was shaking.  _ There’s nothing I can do now but wait. _

Sleep didn’t find her easily. She laid atop the bedroll, staring up at the ceiling, heart pounding loud enough in her chest that the guard probably could’ve heard it. Waves of questions, of what-ifs and anxieties washed over her until she exhausted all avenues of what might transpire when the queen came for her, and then she tried closing her eyes, tried resting, tried relaxing her body, only to find it would not cooperate. Eventually, the window began to glow with the light of dawn. Shortly after, she was summoned.

  
  


Mikoto was… different than Azura had imagined. Different in every possible way. The image of her standing beneath the Hoshidan throne, in the sunlight, black hair spilling down her back over an ivory dress, arms crossed, expression soft and welcoming… it was such a stark contrast to the image of Garon atop his own throne that Azura was sure it would be sealed into her mind for eternity. She turned to Azura as she was led into the chamber, and a wave of emotions washed over her features.

“Princess Azura,” she spoke.

Behind her loomed a large man in a blood-red suit of armor; he nodded, and at once the guards at Azura’s side departed, leaving them more or less alone.

She didn’t know how to present herself, and found she longed for the presence of Kaze and Rinkah. Their sudden absence made her feel weaker, more vulnerable, moreso than she’d assumed it would - after all, they were ultimately only there to escort her to the crown. Nothing more.

“...Queen Mikoto,” she spoke, voice quivering.

But the anger, the vengeful response, everything she’d been expecting from the woman who had lost so much at the hands of her adoptive father, none of it surfaced. None of it  _ would  _ surface.

The queen approached, tall in stature, more graceful than any Nohrian noble she had ever seen. She grew closer, steps slow as though approaching an injured animal, tentatively unfolding her arms… Azura flinched, and then…

...and then she was embraced, pulled into a  _ hug. A hug.  _ For a moment she panicked, unable to process what was happening.

“I know it may be hard to understand, Azura…”  _ That voice,  _ she thought, brow furrowing,  _ is she crying?  _ “But it brings me so much joy to see you. And to see you well, no less.”

Reality finally hit Azura, and she sucked in a breath, squirming free of the woman’s grasp as though she were being attacked. She put some distance between them, eyeing Mikoto in suspicion. “I-I don’t understand.”

The queen observed her with such an aura of pity that it was offsetting. Bringing a hand to her eyes, she wiped away the moisture there before folding them in front of her again. “I have so much I would like to tell you, Azura. If only you would be willing to listen…”

Again, she felt like something was out of place, like there was some piece of the situation missing that left her without any kind of fundamental understanding of what was going on. Her mind worked to come up with some kind of explanation. Was Mikoto aware of what happened with Corrin? Of what she’d done to assist? Was that why she wasn’t being thrown in a cell or burned alive? That couldn’t be possible - nobody knew about Xander, and he wouldn’t have managed to get a message securely out, all the way to the Hoshidan capital… nor did he really have any reason to do such a thing.

_ Corrin.  _ The princess immediately jumped to the forefront of her thoughts.  _ Corrin. I need to tell her about Corrin.  _ Finding some kind of resolve, she spoke again. “There are things that I need to speak to you about, Lady Mikoto,” she said, then, eyeing the swordsman lingering behind them, added, “things about your daughter…”

The way his gaze flew over to them did not go unnoticed; it was then that Azura recognized the man, if only by what amount of his face was visible and the hair billowing out from the back of his helmet - it was Prince Ryoma.

Mikoto’s shock was not as visible, though her brow lowered, casting a shadow over her eyes. “We will speak of many things, Azura. Let it be known. But your health comes first, and it is my understanding that you’ve been traveling for a long time. Your safety and recovery is what comes first. If it is alright with you, I’d like to have you fed and your wounds treated before all else.”

An objection sat on Azura’s tongue, but she held it. Her body truly did feel awful, and she was sure she looked anything but presentable, which, now that the terms of her stay at Shirasagi had seemed to have changed, she began to feel self-conscious about the knots in her hair and the dirt covering her body. Not to mention there were aches she’d had since Shigure which had not yet passed, ones Rinkah couldn’t provide any wisdom on.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, jolting her from her thoughts. Mikoto was looking down on her with something akin to… relief? Pride? Something vaguely motherly, something that reminded her of Arete and sent a painful stake of emotion through her chest. “Know that you are welcome here as a guest, Azura. I know it may be a lot to take in… but things will make sense, once we speak. Please, try to be at ease.”

She was led off after that, more escorts, more guards, listening as best as she could to the heated objections Ryoma had begun to voice as soon as she’d turned the corner and feeling unease swell in her gut beside the odd calm Mikoto’s reassurance had placed there. How could she be welcomed like this? The question still plagued her, and as the guards led her to a table with a prepared meal, as she numbly consumed half her weight of dishes she’d never seen or tasted before, she wondered if this was all a front - if it was a sick, twisted way of punishing her and Garon by extension, by giving her a false sense of security and then having her killed, poisoned, whatever else. It could be some kind of psychological manipulation. The questions itched at her skin until she was led to a steam-filled room, where an oddly-dressed woman bowed to her before helping her undress, examining the various scars and nicks across her body. She applied pressure here and there, judging Azura’s reaction, before deciding she didn’t need to use the stave she had strapped to her waist and instead guided her into a bath a few meters in front of them.

Only then did her anxieties die down some, and as she ran the hot water over her scalp and worked out the knots in her hair, her heart began to calm between her ribs. The fight-or-flight response gradually faded, and her thoughts cleared enough for her mind to wander to other subjects - like whether Jakob had been able to get the child to safety, whether  _ he  _ was safe, where Rinkah and Kaze were… and they ventured all the way up to the door of her Nohrian friends, Camilla and Silas and  _ Niles  _ before stopping, turning on its heel and running back in the other direction.

She was given new clothes to wear on her way out, and a female guard escorted her as she left - one of the ones she’d seen the night before, one that served Ryoma. Questions rested on the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t voice them. The woman barely looked in Azura’s direction, and like Saizo seemed not to have an ounce of respect for her. She took good note of that.  _ Mikoto… whatever reason she has to offer such a warm welcome to me, it’s clear that the rest of the Hoshidans don’t view this in the same way. _

She was led to what seemed to be a large tea room, multiple floors up in the castle. It was unoccupied save for Mikoto and three others, who sat around a table that could’ve seated ten or twelve. The ninja announced Azura’s entrance, and at once one of the two she didn’t recognize stood up - a boy, younger than her, with a long, gray ponytail and an ornate robe not unlike the one she’d seen Ryoma wearing. He glared at her from across the room before stomping over, gruffly brushing past her and down the hall. Mikoto only watched with a troubled look, then reached over to the other, a frailer-looking girl with hair the color of flower petals. She seemed to squeeze her hand for a moment, murmured something, and then the girl rose to exit as well, eyeing Azura as if she were an armed assassin before leaving the same way the boy had gone.

“Enter, please,” Mikoto’s tone was apologetic. “Kagero, thank you for your assistance. You may leave.”

“As you wish, Queen Mikoto,” said the ninja, bowing, though she almost sounded reluctant. Her one visible eye flashed as it passed over the last unknown person in the room, one who Mikoto hadn’t dismissed, and then she disappeared, the door sliding shut behind Azura.

“Join us, please,” the queen said, offering a smile. “Forgive my children… I have had a hard time convincing them of my intentions. I couldn’t expect them to understand, unfortunately…”

Azura said nothing, padding cautiously over to the table. She made brief eye contact with the woman leaning against the wall just beyond Mikoto; she wore loose clothes and her hair was arranged in a beautiful bun, held by gold hairpieces. The same hostile air that the other Nohrians had possessed wasn’t present with her; she simply smiled at Azura as if she knew everything about her, watched as she kneeled at the side of the table, a safe distance away from the queen.

“Orochi,” Mikoto explained, gesturing to the woman. “She is my most trusted advisor. Please do not take offense at her presence; she is not a guard. She is aware of our circumstances and I trust her as an extension of myself.”

_ Trusted advisor.  _ Immediately, Iago’s face emerged from the darkness of her mind, and she tried desperately to blot it out as she sipped at the tea she was served, trying  _ not  _ to think about how it was the reigning ruler of the nation of  _ Hoshido  _ that had done the favor of pouring it. “You have every reason to be suspicious of me. How I wasn’t led here in chains alone is beyond me.”

Mikoto watched her for a long time as tendrils of steam rose up between them from the freshly-served beverage. “You are as wise and sharp as your mother, Azura.”

_ My mother?  _ “...What do you know of my mother?” She didn’t mean to have an accusatory tone, but feared it may have slipped through by the way Mikoto’s brow furrowed.

“There is much to talk about on that front,” she said, sizing Azura up all of a sudden, searching for something… and she didn’t seem to find it, because then she closed her eyes, gave a resigned sigh, and said, “for now, all that’s necessary to know is that we were once acquainted…”

Azura blinked, once, twice, face screwing up in confusion.  _ Acquainted? I would think I would have known if my mother had known the Hoshidan queen.  _ “You… you must be mixing me up, your highness. My mother fled to Nohr from her home country shortly after I was born. I… well, I simply don’t recall her ever meeting any Hoshidan queen, and I know she did not come from Hoshido.”

Mikoto gave her a sidelong look. The coolness in her posture, the calm curve of her shoulders and sturdiness in her position kneeled at the table betrayed nothing of her thoughts on Azura’s objection. “...How much do you remember about that time, Azura? And please - Mikoto is fine.”

The comment dug deep, and the princess almost cringed. Her focus moved to the tea, untouched before her. “I…” Hesitance.  _ This is Corrin’s mother. She isn’t your enemy… she’s already done more to spare you and treated you with more compassion than any of Garon’s men. Remember that.  _ “Not much, I’m afraid.”

The queen exhaled, her shoulders sagging a bit. “...I see. And of your mother?”

Mother. A figure in her head which many of her thoughts and struggles circled haplessly around, but… but… how much, at this point? How much could she remember? Blue hair - a singing voice - what color were her eyes? Her singing voice still echoed in her head now and then, but what did she sound like normally? Speaking, laughing, angered, saddened?

What was her name?

_ What is my mother’s name? _

She reached, groped in the darkness of her mind, and found nothing but empty air. The ground dropped out from beneath her.

“Azura!” There was an insistent voice, alike her mother’s but so different, and a hand suddenly was on her shoulder. She glanced to the right, finding a blurry Mikoto, sorrow clear on her face. Something streaked down her cheek, once, then twice, then again and again. 

Azura opened her mouth to answer the queen, but could only choke out a sob.

“Shh,” she murmured, pulling the princess into an embrace. “Shh. It’s alright.”

_ Her name,  _ she thought, furious and lost,  _ why can’t I even remember her name? _

She cried for longer than she would’ve liked, Mikoto urging her to drink some tea and take deep, long breaths. Despite herself, her situation, and the two children that’d eyed her with such malice before leaving the room, she still felt comforted in the woman’s presence. When her mind cleared some, she found Corrin was suddenly at the forefront of her thoughts, and realized then how desperately she needed to get it off her chest.

“Corrin,” she began, a shiver running up her spine, “your daughter. There’s much I need to tell you about her.”

Mikoto’s stoic facade broke at once. Her eyes met Azura’s and did not look away, widening, her hands stilling around her cup of tea. Behind her, Orochi pushed off the wall, standing straight, mirroring the queen’s expression of bewilderment. “...My late daughter.”

“You have every reason to doubt me,” Azura started, “but... she is alive.”

“ _ What? _ ” Orochi blurted out, white as a ghost. “She…”

“Please hear me out. I had to be around eight years old when I met her,” the princess elaborated, memories now flowing through her like a river in spring. “From what I understand… the trauma of what happened in Cheve and of seeing her father perish pushed her into one of her transformations, which King Garon unfortunately witnessed. He captured her with the intent to exploit this power.”

The way Mikoto’s entire person shifted at this made Azura hesitate. “...’Transformations’, you said...?”

“...Yes,” the princess blinked, once, twice, hand moving to her mother’s amulet. “To... to the dragon. Were… were you all not aware of this? Prior to her departure…”

“No,” was Mikoto’s plain-and-simple response, a sea of emotion in her eyes. “We… I… never observed anything like that…”

_ It truly must have been the first time, then,  _ thought Azura with a frown. The queen seemed genuinely troubled… but then who wouldn’t be?

She steeled herself, and continued; continued from the very beginning, sparing few details, surprised at how much she retained herself given how foggy other things from her traumatic mess of a childhood had become over the years. She did not willingly omit a thing. For better or worse, the queen needed to know - and she was in no place to question Orochi’s presence, especially when at certain points she would need the other woman there to comfort her from a shock of tears.

Her recount became more difficult after reaching the point where she freed Corrin and left her in Xander’s hands. She noted as much to the queen, who could only nod in understanding, laden with concern, and emphasized the fact that she trusted the crown prince - as unbelievable and naive as it may have sounded to Corrin’s mother. Even after recounting what she knew of, Azura rambled on, explaining her reasoning for certain decisions, trying to justify it to the woman…

At some point, though, Mikoto interrupted her by pulling her into another hug. “Enough, Azura…” she murmured, pressing her nose into her hair. “I understand… and I can’t express how grateful I am. Please. You don’t need to… Just, please…” She took a deep breath, and it brushed against strands of Azura’s hair. “I… I need some time.”

They parted shortly after that, Orochi seeing her out. She was fed again, in a hall full of Hoshidans that would cast uneasy gazes over their shoulders at her before moving as far away as possible. Then she was bathed, and as she ran the fragrances and oils provided across her dry, scarred skin, she reflected on the weight that had lifted from her chest at telling Mikoto of Corrin. Mikoto of all people. Even Jakob she had never fully disclosed it to. Whatever happened now, happened; Azura felt, oddly, that her duty was finally complete. She’d done what she’d needed to do. For Corrin, at least.

Mikoto left her with a promise; a promise that the day after, after she’d had time to dwell on the news and compose herself, she would talk to her about her mother proper. About  _ Arete.  _ The name sounded so right in her head, why hadn’t she been able to recall it herself? 

She spent a time alone in the room she was provided with, sitting half in the warm patch of sunlight coming in from its single window, and half in the shadows. An odd feeling of satisfaction welled in her chest, despite the circumstances.  _ But there are still loose ends,  _ she had to tell herself, thinking of the child she’d haphazardly left in the hands of fate, and, reluctantly, of his father.  _ As much as I’d like to, I can’t let my guard down. _

It was with new resolve that she opened the door at a persistent knock around an hour later, eyes widening at who was beyond. “Kaze.”

The ninja nodded his head. “Lady Azura. I hope you are well.”

Her gaze moved past him, to the imposing figure standing further down the hall. The queen’s eldest son, Ryoma. “...Yes. Am I needed?”

“Prince Ryoma has requested you ride with him, if you are willing,” he said, a bit furtively. “Afterwards, a meal will be provided.”

Her stomach began to rumble, and she spoke quickly to mask the noise. “Of course.”

  
  
-*-  
  


Ryoma was quiet atop the brown mare he rode as they weaved through the training grounds north of the castle, out a wide gate - on the opposite side of the palace that she had first entered from - and onto a winding path that led through blooming highlands. Ahead of them, mountains loomed, and behind them Shirasagi stood tall, watching. Their procession was led by the prince, followed by Azura, and lastly Kaze, who stayed a good distance back. If the other two retainers were around, they did not make their presence known.

A breeze blew across the meadows, and with it the sweet scent of flowers and fruit. The sun’s light was warm on her skin in a way she had never felt it in Nohr.  _ I doubt he has brought me here for a pleasant walk in the fields, though. _

When they were far enough from the castle grounds, Ryoma slowed his horse to a trot until it was in step with Azura’s. The intricate bends of his armor flashed in the sunlight. “I wished to speak with you about my mother.”

Of course - he was likely as confused as anyone would be about the receptiveness that the queen showed to the princess of an enemy nation. Azura bit her lip, staring forward in her saddle. “Yes. She spoke with me this morning.”

“I can only imagine what the topic of your discussion had been,” he pondered, drifting around the reason for his dragging her out here. “She was inconsolable when I saw her earlier.”

Azura lowered her head.  _ It isn’t for the reason you would think. _

“I am going to be frank with you, Princess Azura. I have seen firsthand the destruction your kingdom has caused. Not only the hordes of faceless that have been terrorizing innocents and destroying settlements… I was there the day my father was killed in the capital of Cheve.”

She tensed, gripping the reins tighter, but said nothing.

“...That being said, I cannot blame you. I am not fool enough to hold you responsible for such a sin when you yourself couldn’t have been older than ten. However, be aware that most of Hoshido would be more than happy to do just that. My siblings included.”

Azura’s brow furrowed, thoughts drifting. As they’d been leaving the training yards, her eyes had met with one man in particular - the younger prince, she was sure, he’d been in the middle of a conversation with a brunette only to stop as soon as their eyes met. He had gone still as stone, watching her like a predator until she had disappeared around a corner. Grief had clearly manifested in different ways between the two brothers.

“...Thank you for your mercy, and understanding,” she offered, unsure of what else could be said.

Ryoma was quiet for a long time, before bringing his horse to a halt. Azura’s stopped as well, and she turned to look up at him. “It is you I should be thanking.”

Her brow raised in question.

“For doing what you could to secure the life of my sister,” he elaborated, gaze too intense, “even if she remains in Nohrian imprisonment. I cannot express the solace knowing she survived has given me.”

_ Mikoto told him,  _ she realized, and bowed her head in embarrassment.

Ryoma echoed the movement as he continued. “Unfortunately, Hinoka and Takumi may not have the same reaction. Takumi in particular - the impending war has weighed heavily on him. He was intent to have you killed just last night. However, as long as my mother and I are here we will see that no harm comes to you.”

“...Thank you,” Azura muttered, feeling herself deflate. “I’m afraid I am not worth much to King Garon, alive or dead.”

Ryoma hummed to himself. “I figured as much. I will not pretend to understand the…  _ complex  _ history of the Nohrian royal family. But my affiliates in Nohr and Cheve have nonetheless reported that Garon does not hold you at as high a station as your siblings. Even to offer you in exchange for Corrin… I doubt the king would surrender her so easily.”

“You’re right,” Azura said, straightening in the saddle. “If they march for Hoshido, however, you will be in an advantageous position. If you could separate her from the army…”

“Yes,” Ryoma agreed, smiling. “We will be ready. Your work will not go to waste.”

His words were  _ almost  _ reassuring.  _ Almost  _ allowed hope to spread its roots in her chest. Corrin would be home…

Corrin would be home, but…

_ But what about me?  _ The question pressed at her mind, despite the months of apathy preceding it.  _ What am I to do? Remain a prisoner in Hoshido? Will I be returned to Nohr, if the war is brought to an end? _

“...There is one more thing,” Ryoma added, and when she looked to him again, she found pensiveness had rolled across his features like storm clouds. “Regarding my mother… Know that I have an amount of faith in you, Azura. But there is a reason for the caution I still possess. Put shortly, she is known to have prophetic dreams. She says she had one the day after my father and I left for Cheve that foretold his death, and another prior to the first faceless attack on Hoshido. Whether or not they are to believed is not for me to decide… but she warned me that she had another vision back at the start of spring, prior to your arrival.”

Azura gulped, her throat bobbing. A chill ran over her skin, the sun’s rays forgotten.

“Your arrival was not the subject of the dream, however. It... was her  _ own  _ death. With the arrival of a Nohrian so closely associated with the king to the heart of our nation, I can’t help but be wary. That’s all.” Ryoma’s gaze was earnest and he nodded his head as he finished. “I only wished to express that to you… and to warn you that regardless of what you did for Corrin, if you have any intention of harming the queen…”

“I-I  _ don’t,  _ “ she tried to explain, exasperated. “I would never - and after the hospitality she has shown me, I can’t even imagine... “ Her stomach turned within her, making her feel too nauseous even to sit atop the idling horse any longer. “ _ C-Corrin’s  _ own mother… She was my only friend growing up, to even consider such an atrocity-”

“I understand that,” Ryoma replied, and though it was hard to tell with the bulky armor he wore, it seemed as though his shoulders slumped a bit. “And I appreciate your honesty. My mother was the same way when I made such a suggestion. However, if I know a thing about your kingdom, your father and his associates, it is that they are crafty and deceitful. If faced with an obstacle they will conjure any kind of underhanded tactic in order to get past it. I saw this myself with the deployment of the faceless. That’s why myself and my retainers will be keeping a close eye on you, princess.”

Azura opened her mouth to protest again, so certain that if she was part of such a plot she would know - so certain that Garon had sent her to the border to die and it was only by chance that she was located by Rinkah and Kaze - but instead she closed it, choosing not to dispute him any further.

“...I understand.”

  
  
  


-*-

  
  
  
  


It was in the throne room that Azura next met with Mikoto; she stood there like a ghost in the mid-morning light, neck craned just slightly as she gazed up at her own seat. Her robes, all white and pale, stood in contrast to the explosion of hot colors that filled the hall. When she turned to face Azura, though, her eyes were nothing but warm - the look vaguely made her think of Camilla. Camilla, the woman who’d once been one of her closest acquaintances and now felt so faraway.

“Azura,” she greeted. “Good morning. Thank you for retrieving her, Kaze.” With a nod to the man, he departed.

“...Good morning,” Azura murmured, head lowering under the unwavering kindness that Mikoto seemed to emit. “I hope you are feeling well, Lady Mikoto.”

The woman crossed her hands before her, nodding again as she approached. “Much more so, yes! I apologize for breaking down like that. But let’s not discuss such matters right now. Have you eaten?”

Azura nodded, nervous. Kaze and Rinkah had dined with her that morning, oddly, with the latter giving heavy criticism of how Azura had chosen to approach the task of eating the food presented to her.  _ Hold the  _ hashi  _ properly, ya idiot,  _ she had chided,  _ eating with your hands when we were traveling was one thing, but now? _

“Good. In that case, then,” Mikoto’s demeanor shifted at once, lips curving downwards, “we can get right to it. There is much I need to tell you about, Azura, and it begins with the subject of your mother. You said you did not have many remaining memories of her… I have a lot to explain to you on that regard, but there’s one thing I’d like you to do first.” With that she turned back towards the throne, her arms falling limp at her sides.

Azura followed her gaze. The throne almost seemed to be glowing. 

“This throne is an artifact, you see. There is magic imbued in it. I’d like you to sit, Azura.”

“Sit?” She was taken aback. “I… This is the  _ throne… _ ”

“Please,” Mikoto said, turning to look upon her again. “Only for a moment, Azura. I have a feeling it will stir the memories of your mother.”

The princess blinked, a sigh leaving her.  _ The throne… and magic?  _ Ryoma’s warning came back to her again, and she surveyed the rest of the throne room, searching the shadows for his retainers. She saw nothing, but she was certain they were there, certain she wouldn’t have been left alone with the queen. Would they object? Report back to the prince that a Nohrian had the gall to sit on the throne he was set to inherit? 

Mikoto was watching her astutely. She hadn’t noticed it before, but something about her eyes did remind her of Corrin, even if the color was so drastically different. 

Azura scaled the steps, and, sucking in a nervous breath, lowered herself onto it.

In an instant, the world around her twisted, darkened, transformed into something hauntingly familiar - the halls of Krakenburg. The true specter, however, was the woman standing in the center of it all. Not Mikoto. She was taller, stood with such a posture that exuded strength, shoulders squared, the trim of her bob cut straight and sharp. Her robes were elegant and intricate, dark where Mikoto’s were light.

Her eyes were the most striking, though - golden, almost glinting in the hall. They focused on her, and her breath caught.

“Azura,” Arete’s voice was deep and rich, and as she uttered the word her mouth curved into a warm smile. “Come, dear. Let’s get you some supper.”

From beyond her field of vision a girl half the height of the princess ran out towards Arete, locks of blue hair tossing behind her. “Yes, mother!”

Together, then, the two departed, leaving Azura alone in the chamber - only to suddenly be assaulted by dozens upon dozens of memories. Her mother’s voice, the warmth of her embrace, sights of her walking the halls beside Garon. Distantly, Azura felt herself shaking, small whimpers escaping her. The memories stretched further back, glimpses of a place that was distinctly  _ not  _ Nohr filling her mind. Fire, land cracked open like an egg, the hum of magic as it surrounded her and the breathy incantations of her mother. The crying of a child that was not her. The world twisted again, distorting, darkening, and she felt the prick of ice-cold rain against her skin. A window, fogged up. Inside, in the dull light of a dying fire, she saw herself as she was in Cheve, sleeping deeply, her limbs tangled up with a man’s and half-covered by a thick blanket. The rain stopped, a flash filled her vision, making her wince - when she could see again, the front of her head pounding, she found herself in what looked like a meadow, though what should’ve been an open sky was filled with detached chunks of land, as if the earth’s teeth had been pulled and deposited in the air. A hand on her shoulder made her jump, and when she turned, expecting the face of her mother, she instead found a boy there, no older than her, with the same golden eyes and pale blue hair as her. She couldn’t read his expression, was too caught up with the familiarity in his features.

Then, at once, Azura was snapped back to reality. The throne room of Shirasagi filled her vision again - or rather, the ceiling. Groaning, she winced against the sudden light. Her body felt hot and shaky, didn’t seem to want to synchronize with her thoughts.

Mikoto was suddenly there, though, black hair coming down in a curtain as she gazed down at Azura. “Are you alright?” she asked, though she seemed to clearly understand the princess was not remotely well. She extended a hand, and Azura took it, letting the queen help her to her feet. “My apologies… I have never seen such a violent reaction before.”

Azura’s head was still full of clouds, the invasive fog of long-forgotten memories, and she struggled to articulate herself. Turning, she looked back to the throne - finding herself a foot or so away from it.  _ I must have fallen off… _

When she turned back to Mikoto, the woman’s concern was clear. “If you need to rest, please let me know. I hope its magic has done something to aid your memories.”

Azura pulled away, taking one deep breath, two. Her hands raised to her face, covering it before threading up into her hair and finally falling back to her sides. “No…” she muttered. “No… I… I’m okay. I just… My mother…” She shook her head. “I… I recall her, now. The memories I have of us in Nohr... But…” For some reason she was full of trepidation about saying the next part aloud. Mikoto gave her shoulder a squeeze of encouragement. “There were… other memories… places I’m not sure I recognize, even though I’m certain I’ve seen them before…”

“How much do you recall?” Mikoto questioned, her tone almost pressing.

Azura glanced at her, then looked away, shoulders bunching up in embarrassment. “It’s… it’s probably unimportant, Lady Mikoto. Likely the place my mother fled from before going to Nohr… We don’t need to waste your time discussing that.”

Mikoto withdrew, and for a moment the only sound in the spacious hall was her as she inhaled a great breath. “...Will you walk with me, Azura? If you are feeling well enough, I’d like to show you a place just outside the castle town. We can continue our conversation as we go. I think the fresh air will help you sort your thoughts.”

The princess saw no reason to decline, and she hummed her agreement. “I… feel well enough, yes.”

The queen smiled, though there was something in the way she did it that made the hairs on the back of Azura’s neck prickle.

  
  


Ryoma, keeping true to his word, appeared in the stables as Mikoto, Azura, and Orochi were preparing to depart. With him were his two retainers, deciding to show themselves this time. The prince’s eyes darted across the three, and though whatever emotions were running through him were deeply masked by what she could only guess was years of training, it was clear enough that he was there out of suspicion and had a desire to protect his mother. She was proven right when he joined their party, his retainers stringing along (thought they seemed less comfortable atop a horse than he did).

Mikoto and Orochi chattered idly about Shirasagi and the season as they weaved their way through town, occasionally prompting Azura for her input on something. She could only provide one-word responses, too intimidated by the high prince’s presence to feel comfortable and still too disoriented from the assault of memories just hours before to properly process conversation. At some point they passed through a threshold, and then the world opened up around them, fields and trees and farmland. The bright pastels of the landscape still overwhelmed Azura even after months of traveling in this land.

The queen led them down the main road for a while, before veering off the path into a light woodland. The undergrowth crunched and squished beneath the hooves of their horses. Their idle chatter continued, unrelated to their destination, so when Mikoto finally brought them to a halt, it came as a surprise. 

The trunk of the tree they stopped before was wider than any tree she’d ever seen, threads of wood spiraling up its base. She had to crane her neck to see the branches themselves, and her eyes went round when she spotted them laden with hundreds or maybe thousands of petals. Beneath her, her horse grumbled, stamping its hooves against the brush that had also become a carpet of the same pastel-pink color.

“Beautiful, yes?” Mikoto’s expectant gaze awaited her. The queen had already dismounted, and approached Azura to assist her in doing the same. “You’ll have to see it in autumn, someday. The leaves always sweep me off my feet!”

“Mother,” Ryoma called, drawing his horse closer, “is sightseeing what you came for?”

Azura slid off the saddle, glancing over her shoulder at the prince and feeling the scrutinous eyes of his retainers stare back. She scanned the treeline, finding they’d hidden themselves again.

“Yes, my son,” responded Mikoto, ever-patient. She guided the princess the other way. “Sightseeing, and a walk. I am going to take Azura ahead to see the lake. Orochi, would you watch Ryoma in my absence to make sure he doesn’t get himself into any mischief?”

Orochi was oddly quiet as she watched the queen pass, a question seemingly forming on her lips - but she did not voice it. Where she kept quiet, though, Ryoma didn’t. “Mother, take  _ someone  _ with you, at least,” was his objection.

Mikoto waved a dismissive hand. “We’ll only be a few minute’s walk away,” she urged. 

Surprisingly, they let her go. Just ahead, the treeline opened up, revealing a small lake. Dragonflies buzzed just above its surface, and beyond it, mountains rose out of the horizon.

“You’ll have to be patient with my son,” Mikoto murmured, slipping off her shoes and moving ahead to wade into the water. It was clear as crystal, the woman’s movements sending little ripples outward that caught the light of the midday sun above. “With all of them. They’ll come to understand that our battle is not with Nohr… they just need time.”

Azura hummed in understanding… then paused, her brow twitching. ‘ _ Our battle is not with Nohr’? _

“Come, Azura,” The queen was suddenly beckoning to her, one hand extended as if she was supposed to join her in the shallows. Her lips quirked as if she was going to tell a joke: “Do not worry about getting your clothes soaked. We’ll be sure to give you dry ones once we return to the castle.”

Confused as she was, Azura figured she was in no position to decline. So she followed Mikoto, even as the queen led her deeper into the lake’s shoreline. The water rose, past her knees, then all the way up to her waist.

Finally, though, the queen stopped, turning back around to face Azura again with that distant smile. The ends of her long, black hair were just brushing the water’s surface. “Your mother’s song, Azura…” She reached out, taking hold of the princess’s hands. “Do you remember it? You still wear her amulet, after all…”

The princess hesitated. Her mind still felt like it was in a haze, like she was under some kind of enchantment ever since she’d seated herself on the otherworldly throne that morning. “...Some of it,” she stuttered, the words bubbling to the surface in her mind, but not quite breaching it. “It’s still a bit… murky.”

Mikoto tilted her head to the side. “Perhaps I can refresh that memory myself, then…”

Before Azura knew what was happening, then, the queen was singing. Her voice changed in that instant, and she sounded like an entirely different person, like she had shed the mantle of Hoshidan queen and become… something else.

_ You are the ocean’s grey waves, _

_ Destined to seek life beyond the shore, just out of reach _

Azura felt each breath as it entered and left her chest.  _ Mother’s song…  _ she closed her eyes.  _ How could I forget it? _

_ Yet the waters ever change,  _ the notes stretched out over the lake, and the amulet around her neck glowed brightly.

_ Flowing like time, the path is yours to climb…  _

The ground was the first thing Azura felt change - the mud and silt beneath her feet vanished, dropped out from beneath her. Then the water was next, rising over her neck and her head. Gravity let go of her, and all that was grounding her was the grasp of the queen’s hands. Water stopped feeling like water around her. Though her eyes were still closed, she could see light shifting beyond her eyelids. She should have been scared, panicked, but something about hearing her mother’s song had put her at ease. The magic it brought forth was so familiar, and dredged up memories of singing to Corrin in Krakenburg’s depths.

Not as violently as it had when she had fallen off the throne earlier, the world came back to Azura. Mikoto let go of her hands. She opened her eyes, as timid as a newborn.

They were not in Hoshido.

The queen took in a long breath. “...It’s been a long time since I came here,” she muttered, the air carrying her voice away in a strange way. Her gaze travelled up, up… and Azura’s followed it, finding an unreal landscape literally unfolding in the sky above them.

Fundamentally, it looked like Hoshido and Nohr… there were trees, grass and soil and stone, even patches of water. But that was where the similarities ended. As if gravity was as whimsical as the wind, chunks of land, island, floated in midair as far as the eye could see without any rhyme or reason. It took Azura a moment more to realize there was hardly any wind at all here. The air was stiller than it’d been inside Krakenburg’s underground fortress.

“This…” Azura felt like her lungs had been emptied. “I saw this, earlier…”

“ _ Valla _ ,” the word came with an accompanying twist of Mikoto’s brow as she uttered it. “Valla is the name of this place, though it is no longer a word that we can speak in Hoshido or Nohr.”

_ Valla? _

Mikoto would soon guide her to the shore of the small pond they’d seem to have surfaced in, seating her on the grass. She tried not to think about how just a dozen or so yards away, the land dropped off into blue oblivion. Dwelling on it only made her mind spin in confusion.

“Before I begin,” the queen began, “know that we are not trapped here, so there is no reason to fret. We’ll leave shortly… but not until I explain things to you proper, Princess Azura.”

Elsewhere, far from the pond that the two were seated by but still within the boundaries of Valla, a presence stirred. Buried deep within a mountain as he was, he became aware of the intruders as soon as they breached the water’s surface. The halls of the buried palace thrummed, pulsated. 

_ LONGTAO… COME. _

Somewhere within the labyrinth interior of the castle, a boy snapped to attention. “Lord Anankos…”

_ WE HAVE GUESTS. WHY DID YOU NOT ALERT ME SOONER? _

He quivered. “I-I was not aware, Lord Anankos. Guests?”

_ YES…  _ The air went silent for a minute, but it did nothing to soothe the boy’s nerves.  _ TWO… BRING THEM TO ME AT ONCE. _

His whole body trembling, the boy scurried down the dark corridor with purpose. “U-understood, my lord.”

The dragon settled. Calmed. He would have what he desired, now or later. 

_ CADROS…  _ The rage in his veins simmered, sputtering occasionally like acid.  _ TO SET FOOT IN MY KINGDOM AGAIN… I WILL HAVE YOU FLAYED.  _ The other intruder’s presence brushed his mind, sending him into even more of a frenzy of emotions.  _ MIKOTO… I WILL MAKE YOU MY OWN AGAIN. _

Above all, Anankos was patient. Even if his worm of a servant did not catch them today, their time would come. No matter how gradual his domination of the lowly human civilizations outside his kingdom was, it would, with time, complete.

For now, all he had to do was wait.

  
  


Across Valla, far from the buried palace, the boy servant, and the gathering armies of undead, Mikoto stood. A chill had run up her spine, and she’d gained the distinct feeling that he knew they were there.  _ It’s time to go,  _ she thought, sending a reassuring smile to the young princess even as fear swirled within her.  _ I’ve wasted enough time. I can only hope I’ve reached Azura. _

The girl followed her back into the pond with a bit more purpose. Her eyes were still distant, yes, but there seemed to be something more resolute in the way she moved now. Like she’d rediscovered her purpose.  _ I can only pray,  _ Mikoto thought.  _ I feel my time is short. _

When they were ready to initiate the incantation, Azura spoke up all of a sudden, brow furrowed. “Mikoto, if I may…” She clutched Arete’s amulet.  _ This is all that remains of you, sister,  _ Mikoto thought for the umpteenth time since the princess had manifested at the gates of Shirasagi.  _ Your forlorn daughter, and the amulet. I can only hope it is enough. _

“You’d like to sing, this time?” She questioned, keeping her tone smooth. “Hmm… I suppose that would be best. When the time comes that you need to return… having some practice would be best, yes?”

“I need only to sing the first verse?” questioned the girl, trepidation clear as the water they stood in.

“Yes,” Mikoto affirmed. “Keep your voice steady, and do not falter. Everything will be fine.”

When Azura sang, it was her sister that she heard. Sorrow flooded her heart like the breached hull of a ship, drowning her, and as the magic transported them from Valla she felt tears escape her eyes.

_ I suppose we both failed, didn’t we, Arete?  _ she despaired.  _ You passed trying to stop him from infecting Nohr’s king… and what have I done in the years since then? Left my daughter in the hands of fate… I may have nearly lost her to Anankos. At the very least, I can guide Azura… even if my doing this may lead her to her own death. _

They surfaced. The shine of Hoshido’s sun came at a different angle, telling Mikoto that some time may have passed since their departure.  _ My… Orochi and Ryoma will be upset. _

She looked down to Arete’s child, Arete’s child who had somehow grown into a healthy young woman, and she opened her mouth to speak, wishing to vocalize how proud she was of Azura’s work. The girl was certainly starved of many things, affirmation one of the most prominent. Mikoto was not able to get the sentence out, however - her gaze was drawn downward, down to Arete’s amulet.

Her smile faltered.

The faint, blue glow that’d enveloped it when they had entered Valla was gone. It its place was a violet hue, almost pink around the edges… and from this angle she could see that the stone within looked wrong, somehow, as well, like it’d been tampered with…

Azura seemed to have realized the same thing. She muttered something in disbelief, but Mikoto did not hear it.  _ Garon,  _ she thought, fear shaking her very core. Then she corrected herself.  _ Anankos. _

It all happened too quickly. Mikoto reached for the amulet, pushing aside Azura’s hands. Once she had it in her grasp, she tugged,  _ hard.  _ The chain broke, falling into the water, forgotten. The metal was searing hot sealed in the palm of her hand. A cry escaped her lips. Azura called out in surprise. Her mind reeled for a way out, but there was no time. The amulet began to shake and rattle in her grasp. Somewhere distant, the shore maybe, she heard Orochi shouting and the distant voice of her son.

None of it mattered. She had to keep Azura safe.

Turning away, Mikoto brought both hands over the amulet, holding it close to her chest. The water restricted her movements, keeping her from making any significant distance between herself and Azura… Arete’s voice called out to her, screamed, and her eyes winced shut…

Then the gem popped,  _ exploded  _ with an earsplitting crack. Something pricked her chest in a dozen places, and she lost feeling in her hands. Coldness crept into her at once, followed by the warm onslaught of blood. Liquid spilled into her lungs, and they flailed in her chest at an attempt to circulate air. Sounds grew distant. She hit the water. Arms caught her, hands desperately brushed over the punctures in her chest. Azura’s face - Arete’s, they looked so alike - hovered over her, white enough that it made her head pound. She tried to raise a hand to wipe the girl’s tears, wanted to reassure her that this was all in the cards and tell her not to falter, that there were still bigger wars to fight… The road ahead of her would be so rough, after all… but she couldn’t muster the strength to lift her arm from the water, and was sure her hands weren’t in a state to be wiping at tears.

Cold crept in and darkness filled her field of vision.  _ Corrin… Corrin…  _ She wished for the strength to weep.  _ I wanted to see you again, Corrin… What kind of person you became… I wanted to see you again, Corrin... _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies if the pacing in this chapter was too fast, it was admittedly really difficult to write lol and work has pretty much killed my productivity when it comes to hobby stuff like fanfic. this'll conclude azura's POV chapters for a little while I think, but hopefully it fills in some blanks that the past few chapters have created regarding her haha
> 
> Sidenote, Longtao is the JPN name for the character Anthony assuming I'm typgin it correctly lol. I'm actually not sure why the localization decided this, but they changed all the Valla-related content to be what I think is Greek-based stuff? (names mostly) when the original version was primarily what I think was Chinese (Arete's name for example was Shenmei, and I believe the castle is named after an actual place in China) idk I just wanted to nod to that lol

**Author's Note:**

> i will probably update this chapter and clean things up throughout the week. im tired right now i gotta sleep!!


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